RABBONI...which is to say, Master

I shouldn’t be, but I am amazed at how the story of Professor Jack, continues to reverberate through the lives of people who were touched by him or have read his story. I was sitting waiting for worship to begin yesterday when a lady came up to me and told of how Jack’s story had touched her. This lady had actually grown up in Detroit and knew exactly where Case Park was located. When she lived there she had been mugged/robbed over 6 times by homeless folks and was terrified of them. She now lives in Nashville and works for a firm that works with the Salvation Army Kettle program in front of their building. During her time to be the bell ringer, after being soaked in a pouring rain, she was approached by a homeless man. He was obviously mentally unstable, but did not appear to be a physical threat. She told me of his antics and then she told me she invited him to stand under her umbrella and get out of the rain. By this time we were both in tears as she told me how the story of Professor Jack had helped her deal with the fear of the homeless she had lived with for years.

Josh and Kara Graves, (Josh is one of the ministers for the Rochester, Michigan church), started the ministry to the homeless in Cass Park. There work continues and here is a post from Kara’s Blog about their most recent visit.

"Today, our group headed to Cass Park again. We are now going to be going every third Sunday of each month because it is so meaningful to all of us that go.

I first want to thank everyone who has been so supportive this time, giving of your time making soup, buying long underwear, and donating money. I was overwhelmed by all of the donations and help we received!

We headed down to Cass Park with my trunk and Josh's trunk full of long underwear, my backseat stocked with about 70 dozen chocolate chip cookies (in Jack's memory, he had asked for us to bring some because they were his favorite), and others carried the hotdogs, soup, chapstick, grills, bread, pop, and fruit! Stephanie came up with the amazing idea to have pre-stamped envelopes with paper and pens so that they could write letters to family.

I wish I could have pictures for you but I don't, for one, the pictures in my head are too beautiful that a real one would never do, and we have worked hard to be friends and be relationships for the people there, not tourists with their cameras who want to do their good deed.

We arrived around 2, the long johns were all gone at 2:15 (I bought almost $500 worth of long underwear plus all the donations to give you an idea of the need and the amount of people there). We fed everyone until around 4:30 when we left.

Let me tell you about someone we were able to spend time with. Francis has become a special person to us, we have been keeping in touch with him for a couple months now and he was the one that called us when Jack died. Francis pays for a bus ride back and forth to his job at Somerset mall cleaning (for those of you not in Michigan, Somerset is a very ritzy mall where I can't afford much at all). Think of how hard that would be, working at Somerset and then riding a bus back to a shelter in Cass Corridor, I can't even imagine. He is from Jamaica and the most beautiful person I think I know, he has a smile that will melt you to pieces. Francis is trying so hard to get back on his feet after being in a car accident that caused him to become homeless for the past 6 months." Click here for the rest of the post.