It's A Long Walk From The Street
A journey with a guy named "Joe"

This is a long story that is still in the making. So, I’m going to have to tell it to you in pieces.

Part 1

It all started one night as we were leaving church. My wonderful wife has a tremendous heart, which I covet. She is a giver to the core. She’s the kind of person who literally gives the clothes off her back, takes jewelry off her neck and wrists and food from our refrigerator. Every time I’ve wanted to get upset at how much she gives I have to consider how little I give and it makes me repentant. Having had her brother live homeless for a while caused her to become particularly sensitive to homelessness.

We were pulling into the church one evening, headed to the back parking lot and my wife noticed a person lying in a makeshift bed on the ground in the bushes near the church. Brought nearly to tears, she couldn’t dismiss the image from her mind. All that evening, she kept mentioning the person in the bushes. After service, we got in our car and she said to me, “Let’s drive around again and see if the person in the bushes is still there. If he or she is, I want to take them something to eat.” At that time, we were distributing some food from the church’s pantry to persons who were in need of immediate assistance. We circled the block and found the person still there. We didn’t stop because we didn’t want to make the person suspicious or self-conscious. Immediately returning to the church, my wife gathered a bag full of food from the pantry that could sustain this person for a few days. We got back in the car and headed back to the bushes.

Not knowing how this person would respond, I told my wife, “You stay in the car and I’ll go out.” I stepped out of the car, walked toward to makeshift bed and called out, “Excuse me. Excuse me.”