Let me tell you about a night 22 years ago that changed our lives.
Our kids were grown and out of the house and my wife, Terry, and I were glad they were doing well. Both of us had good jobs, but ever since a church retreat, we’d been asking ourselves if there was something more we were called to do. How would I even know if God had something special in mind for me? I wondered.
That night after dinner, Terry and I turned on the tube and flipped through the channels—back when there weren’t so many—and stopped at a movie called God Bless the Child, starring Mare Winningham. She plays a single mom who loses her job and apartment. She and her young daughter end up sleeping on cots in homeless shelters. A social worker finds them a house, but things go from bad to worse and the daughter gets seriously ill. Then the mom feels she has to put the girl up for adoption.
The credits rolled, and I felt so compelled to do something for that mother and child, I almost jumped out of my recliner. It was just a movie, but it was as though someone had grabbed me by the shoulders and shook something loose inside of me, all my spiritual torpor, galvanizing me.
I looked at Terry. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. We turned off the TV and walked back to our youngest son’s room, empty but still neatly furnished with a bed, dresser, desk, nightstand, table lamp. “All that mom needed was a room like this,” Terry said, “until she could get back on her feet again.”
The two of us sank down on the bed. We knew we wanted to help people like the mom in the movie. But, how? Our house was a rental and didn’t have much room—and anyway our landlord would never let us turn it into some kind of shelter. Still, we had things we weren’t using—like our son’s old furniture—that might make a difference to someone in desperate straits. Surely there were others like us who had things they could give. Food, furniture, clothes, money to pay an electric bill…
Terry and I talked and talked, certain that we were meant to act. If we could only gather some necessities and get them to the people who needed them. Finally at 2:00 a.m. we bowed our heads and prayed, “God, it’s a two-way street. As long as you help us, we’ll do whatever it takes.”
The next night we drew up some signs that read, “We Collect for People in Need,” and posted them around town. In a matter of days our basement was filled with chairs, sofas, bedding, food, plates, silverware, pots, microwaves. We weren’t the only ones who wanted to help!
What next? I opened the yellow pages and called halfway houses and homeless shelters. Did they know anyone who could use the things we’d collected? “Sure,” they said, “but you need to deliver the stuff.”
All I had was a Chevy Cavalier with 120,000 miles on it. I borrowed a roof rack and started to make my deliveries. That’s when my eyes were opened and the world of the made-for-TV movie became all too real. We’d carry a sofa up two flights of stairs to a mom and two kids who had only one small mattress for all three of them. Or we’d deliver a mini-fridge to a man whose only source of power was an extension cord strung from an upstairs neighbor (we made sure his bill was paid so that his power could be turned back on).
“Should we ask them to fill out anything?” I asked Terry. Was there some sort of paperwork we should use to make sure people really qualified for our help?
Terry shook her head. “In all my readings of the Bible,” she said, “I don’t believe there’s one time when Jesus ever asked if a person was worth helping.”
We called our fledgling organization My Brother’s Keeper, but we kept the name off any vehicles we used for deliveries. No reason for people to be judged for getting handouts. We wanted to give dignity along with hope. We agreed to accept donations to cover our expenses, but we wouldn’t ask for anything from the government. They would want paperwork and that’s not who we were. I switched to the night shift so we’d be free during the day to make deliveries, but we didn’t take any pay for our work. This was meant to be our gift.
Twenty-two years ago if somebody had said, “This is going to turn into something so big you’ll need a 15,000-square-foot warehouse to store all the stuff and a whole fleet of trucks and you’ll reach over 90,000 families,” I wouldn’t have believed it. But I’ve discovered great things can happen when you let yourself be guided. This has been a two-way street.
We’ve never been let down. That’s why there’s one extra gift that goes with every delivery we make. When someone asks where the furniture and supplies come from, we give them a small wooden cross. “Here’s who you can give thanks to,” we say. We do it all the time. For a movie one night long ago that changed our lives and helped us change thousands of others.
