A Few Sandwiches

The homeless ministry, “A Few Sandwiches” is not about food.  Food is simply an avenue by which a conversation can be started.  The ministry is altogether about building relationships.  What is true for the majority of the people on the streets is they have destroyed all of the meaningful relationships in their lives and, after being on the streets for such a long time, they begin to believe nobody wants them.   Once trust has been built and conversation begins to move towards the core of their existence, the people on the streets often tell me they desperately want to quit living this life but they have nowhere to go. They tell me getting clean and sober is easy but what happens next?  Who is going to want them and who would hire someone with a record of drug possession and no record of work? 

The biggest challenge for many of these people is boredom.  They can apply for housing and can go through Hooper’s detox, but having destroyed all of the meaningful, trusting relationships in their lives, they have no support network when they move into their apartment.  All alone they get bored quickly and go back out to the streets to visit with people they know.  Before long they are back using again, they are kicked out of housing and find themselves, back living on the streets. 

Without family support, without someone who is NOT a part of street life, they have very little opportunity to move out of that cycle of getting sober and falling back into addiction.  The deck is stacked against them.  This ministry is about attempting to be that surrogate, that person who can be trusted and can help navigate the path from addiction, through detox, to recovery, and hopefully into a job and active participation in society, as well as repairing broken connections with loved ones.  It is a very long, slow process with absolutely no assurances the time invested is going to provide the benefits hoped for.   But even if they never recover from their addiction, we have an opportunity to share Jesus.