As a blogger, there are sometimes things I want to point out or link yo that are not worth cranking up ye olde blog.

It was for these things that a tumblelog is just perfect.

I have created one for the site here; if you are bored, read the ramblings of an urban missionary – the link is in the nav-bar up top, and excerpts are in the sidebar.

Enjoy.

She is 27, but if you talk to her, you have to do so on a 12 year old level. She is mildly retarded and like so many people with her mental problems, she is very affectionate, which is often either misinterpreted or deliberately taken advantage of. When the men she sleeps with reject her the next day (ie. don’t want to be her ‘boyfriend’) she is confused and hurt and feels rejected. I spent three hours one Saturday afternoon listening to her cry, feeling her pain and trying to convince her she is worthwhile. A week ago, after months of working on her to do it, she called home and her father is sent her a bus ticket so she can come home. I took her to the bus station on Friday.

The bus station with E_____ was an adventure. She was very emotional – she wanted to go home, but did not want to leave her friends she has made here.  Honestly, I think her family life at home is not the best: her mother was screaming at her over the phone while we were in the bus station, but what the hell can you do? She is no doubt better there, where she will be monitored and be inside, where people who love her will make sure she takes her medicine, than here, where she sleeps on the street in 35 degree weather, is taken advantage of sexually, has no one to monitor her, to help her.

Sometimes, there is no clear cut answer. Sometimes, loving people means doing the least worst thing and not the best thing. Sometimes, there is no best thing. Sometimes, love is hard.

Always, love wins.

My friend Renee was in the hospital this week and had to have heart surgery, so I spent most of my week also in the hospital, sleeping on what can only be charitably called the world’s most uncomfortable cot. However, she came through surgery OK so she is now on the good drugs, feeling little pain and generally up to her old tricks. There were some scary moments along the way, but God is good and all is now well.

While sitting there, eating hospital cafeteria food and getting fat, I talked to some folks I trust and it looks like the next step for me is to start a 501c3 non profit to manage the work I do with the homeless. It will force oversight (something that is needed) , it will make it easier for people to donate money and goods (also needed) and it will give me some credibility when talking to churches and other nonprofits.

This does force other issues, though. Issues like:

• What is the long term plan?
• How do we measure success?
• Is there a growth plan? Do we want to build this and expand to other cities?
• If we had money, what would we do with it?
• Do we just work with the homeless, or all the poor?
• What do we call it?
• What would day to day look like?

All of these and more are running through my mind. I have answers to many of them, which I will expand on in future updates, but these are all questions that must be answered before kicking this thing off.

Meanwhile, I will still be out there, plotting goodness and creatively loving folks. Maybe I will see you out there.

I have been working away to make this site more user friendly and more functional. With that in mind, I have began the redesign of the website.

I hope to make it more functional, more user friendly and, quite frankly, more attractive, Right now, I only feel qualified to speak on the last point… I like it a lot!

Note the row of navigation tabs at the top of the page: you can now get some tips to help the homeless, you can subscribe to our free homeless newsletter, you can contact me and you can read more about how this website came to be (this last page will be changing a lot soon… it is in line for a rewrite).

Well… what do you think?

Well, the January issue is live now and should have hit your inbox. Our hope is to be able to do a print version next month, but this will involve some additional expense.

If you want to sign up for the email version of the newsletters, just click here and subscribe. We will never share your information with anyone.

In this month’s newsletter, I share the stories of some folks I talked to so far this year… I hope you will subscribe.

Dear Friends-

I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas and are having a happy new year. Having survived the rampant commercialism of the season, I look forward to the austerity of Lent and the future promised by Easter. I long for green seedling sprouting from the soil, birds chirping and buds on the limbs of the oak trees.

Here in Raleigh things move forward, albeit slowly. The rush of help everyone gave over the holidays is gone now, the lines of volunteers who wanted to feed the homeless has dwindled, the gifts of blankets, gloves and food has returned to pre-holiday levels and the local churches have resumed ignoring the homeless, their guilt assuaged by their seasonal efforts.

If I sound bitter, it is temporary, I assure you. Living among the folks I do, seeing the hopelessness of some of their situations causes one to doubt the wisdom of such work. If, like me, you were raised with the idea of ‘success’, of goals and objectives and completion, then urban ministry can be difficult at best and often frustrating. Doing this sort of work calls for a new definition of success and an understanding of what Mother Theresa of Calcutta meant when she said she was not called to succeed, but to be faithful. I pray often that I will be faithful.

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Writing has always come easy for me, but sometimes just what to write is the problem. I want to share with all of you, my supporters and friends, what I do, but also there is the desire to shield you from the ugliness of what I see and work in. However, I was talking with a friend and he told me that nothing conveyed exactly what it is I do here so much as the anecdotes of the people I talk to. With that in mind, I have decided to share with you a bit of what I see and do here on the streets of Raleigh. The following items are a brief sample of my interactions over the last two weeks.

Item- He is 50 years old, has been homeless for seven years and found out three days before Christmas he has HIV. Over the last two weeks, I have spent time and energy finding him a social worker, getting him plugged into the Medicaid system and applying for various Government programs to help pay for the very extensive medication he will require (His story is on the blog, under the title No Slack Jesus).

Item- A young homeless couple I have helped for a few months found out her grandmother’s house had burned to the ground. This is always bad, but the grandmother has custody of their 2 year old child. Luckily the grandmother had insurance and everyone made it out OK, but the trauma of knowing your child almost burned to death while you live on the streets 50 miles away is very real. In times like this, you just need someone to hug you, to listen to you cry and to care. I thank God I was there.

Item- He makes $22 an hour. He is intelligent and well spoken. He lives under an overpass. An alcoholic and a crack addict, he is in love with a crack addict and sees no way out. He gets paid on Thursday and is broke by Sunday, where we met as he ate the free food we gave out at Moore Square. He has had sporadic attempts at sobriety, sometimes going as long as three years. I convinced him to go to an AA meeting last Sunday afternoon… as I write this, I am waiting to see if he will show up again today.

Item- She is new on the street, having just been discharged from the local mental health facility. She is in her early twenties and quite attractive, but apparently very bipolar and needs to be medicated. Last Thursday she was gang raped by four men who she had just met. Because of her paranoia, she refused to let any of us call the police or ambulance. When we did anyway, she ran away before they got there. I saw her last night and the bruises and cuts are healing now, but who knows what new scars are added to her addled and confused psyche. I found out today she has been “adopted” by a local pimp, who took her in.

Item- She is 27, but if you talk to her, you have to do so on a 12 year old level. She is mildly retarded and like so many people with her mental problems, she is very affectionate, which is often either misinterpreted or deliberately taken advantage of. When the men she sleeps with reject her the next day (ie. don’t want to be her ‘boyfriend’) she is confused and hurt and feels rejected. I spent three hours one Saturday afternoon listening to her cry, feeling her pain and trying to convince her she is worthwhile. This morning, after months of working on her to do it, she called home and her father is sending her a bus ticket so she can come home. I will be taking her to the bus station on Friday.

In addition to the above, there is the day to day of listening to troubles, letting countless folks use my phone to call parents and social workers and helping people open checking accounts, fill out job applications and other paperwork and trying to wade through the red tape of government “assistance”. Having been on the streets here now for almost five months, I no longer have to “look” for people to help; now they come find me.

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Those of you who pray for me or have sent gifts and support, I thank you so very much; know that I also thank God for you. It is a sad fact that there are some problems only money can solve; thank you for helping me help them.

If you want to help, the following items are always needed by the folks I work with:

• Net-10 and trac-phone phone cards (Get them at Wal-Mart for the best prices)
• Long distance phone cards (Sam’ and Costco usually have the best prices)
• Gift cards to Kroger (any amount)
• Mcdonald’s gift certificates or gift cards (any amount)

Of course, blankets and clothes are always needed, but since many of you are out of town, mailing those things are impractical. If you are in Raleigh, however, let me know and we will work out the details.

If you want to send money so we can help defray some of our costs, just make the check or money order out to “merge community church” and mail to

Hugh Hollowell
Box 18142
Raleigh, NC 27619

Please put the words “Moore Square – Hugh” on the memo line. We will get you a receipt and all for your taxes. You are under no obligation to help, but if you want to, we sure won’t send the money back.

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I feel so very fortunate to be here. I thank God (most days, anyway) that I am able to see him in the people I work with, and I go to bed many days physically depleted with my mind racing about everyone’s problems, concerns, worries and conditions.

Knowing that many of them will not change, at least not in any way a missionary would value, does not matter to Jesus; he loves them anyway, so I must. Knowing that they are incredibly valuable to him means they have worth and value regardless of their addictions, their afflictions or their sins.

Until he returns, I am here, on the front lines, creatively showing his love to the hurting and marginalized. Until he returns, I revel in the love of the God of the second chance, the God of new beginnings, the God who loves us.

Love wins. Always.

Hugh Hollowell

Just a note to let you know that your eyes are not decieving you, w are just making some adjustments here on the site.

Bear with us.

People with ADD tend to be very empathetic, which, 98% of the time, works to my advantage. The other 2% of the time, however, it makes me an emotional wreck.

Over the holidays my friend Renee and I hit the road (more details about this in the January newsletter, sign up here to get yours!) and were gone about 4 days longer than planned due to some unfortunate fuel pump issues.

The first time I ate lunch at the soup kitchen, I was almost overwhelmed with the darkness, the bleakness, the lack of hope. Over time, I came to almost not notice it anymore. That changed last week. While I was out of town, a person I knew in passing (who was quasi-homeless) was arrested for sexually assaulting a 4 year old girl. He is in jail now, awaiting trial. It has since came out that he had a long list of priors for just this sort of crime. I never saw it coming, but more importantly, a lot of folks who know him much better than I do are also surprised.

It is exactly because of this sort of evil that I find no problem believing in a very real, very alive Devil, or dark force in the universe. Sometimes, it is easier to believe in the darkness than in the light.