This email went out to our list of supporters and interested folks on July 29th of 2010. We send something like this out most months – if you would like to get on that email list, please go here and give us your email address. Of course, we won’t share your info with anyone, and we won’t fill your inbox with crazy spam. (Or even sane spam.)

Dear Friends,

When I met them several years ago, they were homeless. She had delivered five children, all of whom had been taken by the state. He was a crackhead living off her food stamps, who made spending money by turning tricks for the white-collar types that cruise the homeless camps looking for sex.

He has several kids by different women. She has a two pack a day habit. They had a baby together – his family was fostering that kid for the state while they “got things under control”. Then they found out she was pregnant. Again.

Luckily (!) about this time, they were on a city bus that hit a car. As a result, they got a small settlement. They paid a year’s worth of rent on a place infested with fleas & roaches & moved in just in time for her to deliver the baby. The state let her keep this one.

They still had no money, no job. They had food stamps & whatever church they were stringing along for help that week. He was still turning tricks & she was selling her food stamps and WIC allotment. Apparently, the state was impressed by their industry & let them have custody of their other child, who is now three. The last time I was over there, the kid was watching a VHS tape of New Jack City & eating a cold hot dog while a roach ran across his foot.

Last week, I get a phone call the day before I go out of town. He ran off with the neighbor, with whom he has been having an affair. The neighbor is HIV positive. And the lease on the apartment runs out at the end of August.

Her mental health caseworker & I talked to her for hours, encouraging her to file for child support & get a restraining order. She said she will. While I am out of town, he moves back in with her. And why not – it’s almost time to get food stamps again. It’s hard to blame her – the thought of being alone with two kids has her terrified.

Loving these people is not easy for me. It is easy for me to say that they are where they are because of the choices they have made, or their moral failures, or whatever. But if I only love people who are lovable – well, even terrorists do that.

My Evangelical friends complain I don’t talk enough about my faith in these letters. Well, understand that the only thing that keeps me answering the phone when she calls is my belief that she is valuable to the God I profess to believe in. And the only reason I am not filled with total despair for those babies is the assurance found in the ancient prayer that one day it will be “on earth as it is in heaven.”

But until that day comes, I don’t know anything to do but to try my best to love them, even when it is not easy. And to pray really, really hard.

They could use your prayers, too. Truth be told, so could I.

Love Wins. Always.

Hugh Hollowell
Love Wins Ministries | Executive Director

Web: http://lovewins.info
Blog: http://lovewins.info/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/lovewins

This email went out to our list of supporters and interested folks on June 22nd of 2010. We send something like this out most months – if you would like to get on that email list, please go here and give us your email address. Of course, we won’t share your info with anyone, and we won’t fill your inbox with crazy spam. (Or even sane spam.)

Dear Friends,

After the recent article about us in the local paper, I have been asked dozens of times just what we do, exactly.

We feed people. But we aren’t a feeding ministry. And while we do help people get jobs, we aren’t a job training program. Almost 50 times since Christmas we have gotten work shoes for folks. But we aren’t a clothing ministry. And in a few weeks, we will be celebrating the 4thof July in the park with our friends who live outside – but that isn’t what we do.

At any given moment, we may be doing any or all of those things. But we are primarily a ministry of presence.

Being homeless means having no one to listen to you when you hurt, no one to share your dreams with, and no one to celebrate with when good things happen. And no one to stand beside you when you are scared.

Which is why, several weeks ago, I was in the doctor’s office, sitting next to my friend Sarah, holding her hand as we wait to hear the bad news. She had recently had her first annual exam in 16 years. (When you are struggling to survive, sometimes you let things like that slide.) And when she had called for the results, they refused to give them to her over the phone. This is never good.

Her sponsor in NA died of cervical cancer, so she was scared to death of going to that doctor’s office by herself to hear the news. So there I was, looking very out of place as she and the doctor talk about cervixes and ovaries and so on. And when he told her it looked like cancer, I was the guy who held her as she cried. And prayed with her in the parking lot.

Today she got the results back from the specialist. It is cancer of the cervix, and in a few weeks she is going in for an operation. So it was only natural that she called me and some of our volunteers to let us know. And when they wheel her back in the hospital room after cutting on her, it will be our faces she will see when she wakes up.

What do we do? We are present. Often our being present doesn’t change things – she is going to have surgery if we are there or not. But now, she won’t be alone. And that is not a small thing at all.

Love Wins. Always.

Hugh Hollowell

http://lovewins.info

PS: The only reason I was able to be in that doctor’s office next to Sarah was because of your financial contributions that pay my salary. And it is your money that will buy the flowers in her room when she comes out of recovery. If you don’t currently support our work but want to, you can find out more about that here. We really need people who are willing to commit to ongoing monthly contributions, so we can budget.

This email went out to our list of supporters and interested folks on January 22nd of 2010. We send something like this out most months – if you would like to get on that email list, please go here and give us your email address. Of course, we won’t share your info with anyone, and we won’t fill your inbox with crazy spam. (Or even sane spam.)

Dear Friends,

Sure, the Easter bunny has gone away and the crème filled eggs are half-off in stores now, but on the Christian calendar, it’s still Easter – a time of celebrating Resurrection.

Maintaining our ministry of love and presence means having to search hard for Resurrection. You find out your alcoholic friend is now experimenting with heroin. Or you watch someone slide further and further from their community and into despair, or you cry with someone who just lost their food stamps and now they have no idea how they will get the still needed groceries. Sometimes, for those for those society has marginalized, it’s just one long Friday. Sunday, and it’s promise of Resurrection seem unlikely at best, and a taunting myth at worst. Somedays, it gets so bad that to hope in Resurrection at all, you have to hunt for it.

You will you see hints of Resurrection long before you find the thing itself – but only if you are looking for them. The long estranged family that finally takes Fred’s calls, and then send him a ticket to come home. Danny getting out of jail and telling us about his new-found sobriety. The guy who gets the pair of boots you guys paid for, who cries because the increase in income means he can move out of his car and into a rooming house. Hints are out there – but you just have to search for them.

Or take our friends Karen and Steve who, you may remember, were living outside in a tent until Troy and Marti invited them to live with them for a season. Over the last few months there have been hints of what the future could look like – Steve’s new job, the vocational training program that accepted Karen, Steve entering the GED program, the new glasses for Karen so she can see, the opening of a first bank account.

New life, however, is always accompanied with birth pangs. Because nothing they have experienced thus far in life has prepared them for this new life, with bank accounts and leases and a community that cares about them, it hasn’t been smooth sailing – not at all. And more than once, Troy and Marti have wondered if they bit off more than they could chew. And several times they were sure they had.

But this weekend Karen and Steve move into their own apartment – in what Karen says is the nicest place she has ever lived. They’re moving on Saturday, but for them, it’s Easter Sunday, with Resurrection and new life breaking out all over.

They have moved into new places before, and there have been new jobs before. Things aren’t magically better – there will be stumbles and failures and slips and falls, just like before. But this time they will not be alone. This time there will be grace. This time there will be love.  And if Easter tells us anything, it is that Love Wins.

Thank you for all the love and financial support you have given to Karen and Steve thus far. Their struggle is far from over – in some ways it is just beginning. Please continue to pray for them and us. And of course, the only way we are able to walk beside people like Karen and Steve is because of your continued financial support.

Dear Friends,

It occurred to me several years ago that most (all?) of the good things that happen in our lives come about because of our relationships. If you see people who are not getting the results in life they want, it is probably because their relationships do not support the achieving of those results.

Put another way, we believe people who live outside don’t have a housing problem – they have a relationship problem. When there is a power inequality between two groups, the onus for changing that is on the more powerful group. Therefore, the single most effective thing we can do to end homelessness is to build those relationships.

My friend Marti has bought into that. Even though her husband is unemployed and their own stability is far from certain, she comes out on Saturday morning to make friends who have less stuff than she does.  For her, these are real relationships – so when she read in my last email that her friend Karen was living in a tent with her husband, she decided that just would not do.

Which is why on Christmas Day, Karen and Steve moved in with Marti and Troy and their two kids. Because Marti believes that if Karen is her real friend, then she can’t say she follows Jesus while her friend sleeps outside in a tent in 20 degree weather. (You can read the full story here).

Because of their relationship with Marti and Troy, Steve and Karen are now indoors and safe. And when Karen had a heart attack a few weeks ago, she had someone to take her to the emergency room. And after she had surgery to put a stent in, she had a safe and warm place to recuperate. And when her prescriptions totaled over $230 a month, she had people to help her with that. Karen would tell you the only reason she is alive right now is because of Marti and Troy.

Karen and Steve are housed right now, but not stable – long-term they need their own place and a steady job for Steve. Troy and Marti are stable, but barely. He is unemployed, but managing to get a bit of temp work here and there. However, their food budget has now shot up, having these two extra people to feed. So, I am asking for your help.

Troy and Marti need some help with the financial burden of having two extra mouths to feed at a time when their own resources are stretched so thin.

Karen’s medications are running over $200 a month. We are working with the drug companies to hopefully get this reduced, but until that happens, we are committed to seeing she gets her meds.

If you are able to help us cover the food or medical costs, go here and make a one time gift – even if it is only $10 or $15. Just pick “Karen Fund” from the drop down. (To send a check, just put Karen Fund on the memo line.) Of course, your gifts are tax deductible, etc.

And Steve needs work – any kind of work. He has a construction background, but is eager to do almost anything. If you are in the Triangle and you hire people, let me know if you would be willing to talk to him – I personally will vouch for him.

And whether you can give or not, please pray for Karen and Steve and Marti and Troy. After all, they need the prayers and, well, you could probably use the practice.

Love Wins. Always.

Hugh Hollowell

This email went out to our list of supporters and interested folks on December 22nd of 2009. We send something like this out most months – if you would like to get on that email list, please go here and give us your email address. Of course, we won’t share your info with anyone, and we won’t fill your inbox with crazy spam. (Or even sane spam.)

Dear Friends,

Typical non-profit wisdom says to send an end of the year introspective email to your list, telling of all the great things your organization did over the last year. I get that email from ministries and causes I personally support and I swear they are all written from the same template.

Doing it that way, I would tell you the victories of the last year – the new churches we partnered with, the dozens of new volunteers we picked up, the new relationships we added. That email would mention the addition of Saturday morning to our weekend breakfast line-up, the new leaders who have emerged from the ranks of our volunteers, the generosity of the 20 or so regular donors who contribute monthly, so we can budget and buy shoes and food and pay me enough to cover my rent and (most months) my groceries.

But in that email, Karen gets lost. Sure, we helped her get prescriptions filled, and she’s one of dozens for whom we bought shoes. But that email would not, could not, tell you anything about the tent she lives in with her husband since there is no shelter they can both be in and be together. You wouldn’t know that one very cold night after dark I got them blankets and sleeping bags that your money provided. Maybe you read on the blog about her being sexually assaulted, but you wouldn’t have heard about us standing in line together to get her seizure medication filled, or about her crying into my shoulder last week when she came to terms with this being her first homeless Christmas. That stuff just doesn’t fit into your typical Christmas email.

But I am OK with that, because we are not your typical homeless ministry. Three winters into this, I still feel funny calling this a ministry or organization – it is just me and some folks like me trying our best to love very broken people no one else wants to love. Over the last year, some of you have came alongside us, physically and financially, and helped us do that. And we are very grateful. We could not do it without you.

Others might be testing us, feeling us out. I understand that. There are lots of folks out there asking for your time and money, and they have awesome statistics and inspiring stories. They have great letterhead and warm and fuzzy emails and tales of success and overcoming adversity. That’s what they do, and they do it well.

But if you want to learn to love people everyone but Jesus has given up on, if you want to be blessed by people who have nothing to give you, if you want to see love win – well, that’s what we do, and we are pretty much the only ones out here doing it. And we would love to have you along for the ride.

(If you want to get your donation in before the end of the year, do that over here. We have to have it postdated by the 31st for it to count for 2009 – plus it helps us in our budgeting for 2010!)

Love Wins. Always.

Hugh Hollowell

This email went out to our list of supporters and interested folks on November 24th of 2009. We send something like this out most months – if you would like to get on that email list, please go here and give us your email address. Of course, we won’t share your info with anyone, and we won’t fill your inbox with crazy spam. (Or even sane spam.)

Dear Friends,

It’s that time of year again. Crisp air, turning leaves and talk of holiday plans. And if you are in a church, odds are your church has talked about some way to reach out to the homeless.

In the last three years, I have heard all sorts of plans to reach out to the homeless over the holidays – everything from a hot plate dinner taken to the park to a worship service designed especially for the homeless, complete with nativity re-enactment. Seriously – with a baby Jesus and everything.

I know you folks think I am something of a cynic, but even I recognize that the intentions behind every one of these outreach plans are good and loving (or at least, I prefer to think they are). But that is not the point.

The point is, those outreach plans have nothing to do with the very real people with very real fears, hopes and dreams that live outside. Instead, they are more often about us, and how this will look to the community and on our website. Or what we think we ought to be doing “this time of year”.

If we really want to be a blessing to those who have less than us, we really ought to have some conversations with them instead of just talking to them. After all, would your faith community plan an outreach to the Latino community and never discuss it prior to launch with a single Latino? I didn’t think so – or at least I sure hope not!

And if we have those conversations, we will hear about the 10 plates of food they are offered on Thanksgiving day… and how no one comes out to feed them in the middle of May. How they get 30 blankets in December, but how they shiver in March.

You see, those of us who live indoors (Normals, some of my friends call us) tend to believe that because we live indoors we are instilled with insight as to what the “less fortunate” need. Because they are the broken ones, not us. Or maybe our “unbrokenness” is a front we keep up, to hide how screwed up we really are.

That is the story of Jesus, anyway – that we are all broken. That none of us have our stuff together. And that the only thing that can save any of us is love. And not just the last 45 days of the year, but every single day. And if that sort of love is going to take root, maybe we ought to start listening to each other.

Love Wins. All year round.

PS: If you would like to give to Love Wins Ministries, you can find out how to do that here. You will have our gratitude and a tax deduction, of course, but you will help keep folks warm all winter long- and that is no small thing.

This email went out to our list of supporters and interested folks on  October 10th of 2009. We send something like this out most months – if you would like to get on that email list, please go here and give us your email address. Of course, we won’t share your info with anyone, and we won’t fill your inbox with crazy spam. (Or even sane spam.)

Dear Friends,

Several weeks ago I sat in a room full of pastors from downtown churches in a forum called by the Raleigh Police Department. Ostensibly, it was to talk about how faith communities can properly secure their premises, especially in light of Martha’s murder a few months ago. The gist of the presentation was about church security – having your facilities well lit, etc. And then, they started talking about “the homeless.”

We saw pictures of dangerous criminals (their words), all but one of whom were black, as examples of the sort of people we should be watching out for. (Of course, most of the folks in the audience were white, so this played with their stereotypes perfectly.) Then they presented us all with trespass letters, which, if signed and placed on file with the police, would give them permission to arrest folks found on their property after hours. The entire presentation built to this, and you got the feeling this was the whole reason for the meeting.

There aren’t near enough shelter beds. If you are unhoused and needed a safe place, you might think about going to sit out of the rain under the awning at the corner church. Especially since the church is closed so you won’t scare any of the rich white people who attend there. If you thought this way you wouldn’t be alone. There are several churches downtown where friends of mine sleep – behind their dumpsters, in the shrubs, under the awning. Because it is well lit, clean and generally safe.

The police work for the city, which makes revenue from developers, who sell houses to rich people who do not like seeing homeless people. So the police are under a lot of pressure to “clean up” the homeless problem. The police are frustrated by the churches that have allowed people to sleep on their grounds. So, the police scare the daylights out of the church leaders, throw Martha’s death in the mix, show some scary pictures of black men and convince a goodly number of the downtown churches to put up no trespassing signs, enabling the police to act on those trespass letters they wanted us to sign.

The presenters assured us they did not want to interfere with our mission – they just wanted us to help them keep us ’safe’.

I was the only one who stood up and said that our mission does not call for us to be safe – it calls for us to show extreme love and radical hospitality. I asked the people, preachers and police alike, the following question:

“If you are tired and hungry and alone and have no home and no hope – if you cannot go to the church, where should you go? “

No one had any answers to that. The police officer told me he understood, but that was not his job.

But it is my job. It is our job. To extend grace and love to the other. Not to put up signs to keep people who don’t look like us away.

So I have spent the last few weeks telling my friends who sleep outside that churches are not safe places anymore. That the No Trespassing signs mean they will be arrested. And when they ask me where they are supposed to go if they can’t go to church, I tell them I don’t know. And when they leave, I cry.

The Catholic activist Dorothy Day said once that her biggest battle was with Pride. I understand that. I have a lot of people telling me what an awesome thing I am doing in my work of building relationships with very broken people and teaching others how to do the same. I have spoken at universities and churches and I get calls everyday, wanting my opinion or advice on how to do ministry to the poor. It can be very ego-boosting.

After someone has just spent 15 minutes boosting your ego, it is a very difficult thing to tell them that you are uncertain, or you are not sure, or that you are scared. After a while, it becomes hard to ask for help. As if asking for help diminishes the value of what it is I am out here doing. As if I were not just a broken guy, very much in need of grace.

So, here is the deal. I am officially asking for your help. Not just help for my “flock”, but help for me as well. Here are four things you can do today.

Pray for me & for Love Wins Ministries.

I really mean this. The world I work in is very dark. I can only survive in this environment if I have your prayers behind me.

What is going on out here is nothing less than spiritual warfare. We are doing battle with the systems and powers that would oppress and damage those God loves. And those powers and systems will not go gently.

Go here to sign up for a twice a month email prayer letter that will tell you how best to pray for both me personally as well as for Love Wins Ministries.

Give to us

I have no idea what you think our finances look like, but this thing is held together by hope and prayer. We are $700 a month away from being able to pay me the same salary a full-time employee at McDonald’s makes, minus the health insurance and snazzy uniforms. We need office space, storage space and business cards. We recently had to tell people we can’t buy them any more boots until August because our primary donor had unexpected expenses. We need your financial help. Go here to learn how to be part of our support team.

Talk about us.

A basic belief of our ministry is that following Jesus calls us to have authentic relationships. This is why we won’t cold call churches or send unrequested info packets – it just is not relational. What we need is for you to do is:

Talk about Love Wins Ministries with your friends.

Tell your pastor about what we are doing out here.

Take me (Hugh) to church with you and introduce me to your pastor and friends.

Get your small group or congregation to invite me to speak.

Put a link to our website on your blog.

Follow us on Twitter.

Join our cause on Facebook and invite your friends.

Forward our newsletter to your friends.

Love.

Loving someone who has less stuff than you do can change your life – and theirs. Last week I sat with a small group and talked about ways they could reach out to their community and build real relationships, using their unique gifts. I would love to have a similar conversation with you or with your small group or congregation.

Pray. Give. Talk. Love – Always, Love.

‘Cause Love Wins.

Hugh Hollowell

My friend John recently wrote a blog post in which he recounted a small scene from his day:

On the way home, at the stop at the intersection of Gorman and Hillsborough Streets, the bus driver opened the door, and a man with worn clothing, unshaven, and an overly-stuffed backpack screamed at the driver, “Man, I need to get to Cary.”

“I don’t go to Cary,” the driver responded.

“I need to get up to the BP station then,” the man yelled.

“The one up by the fairgrounds?” the driver asked.

“Yeah.”

The driver replied, “I don’t go that far, but I can let you off on Beryl, and you can walk up Beryl to the BP station. The fare’s a dollar.”

The man yelled back, “I don’t have a dollar man. I’m a Vietnam vet. I’ve served my country. I need to get to Cary.”

“Come on the bus, man. I’ll be a good citizen and pay your fare,” and the bus driver pulled a one out of his wallet and stuck it in the fare machine.

The man got off at the Beryl stop, and just walked face-in, into the little covered seating area that’s at that stop. He just stood there facing in, and I watched the bus driver watch him for as long as he could see him in the rearview mirror, and then out his side window as he turned the corner (until we lost sight of him), to see if the man was ever going to start walking along the road in the direction of the BP station.

And I wondered, “WWHD”? [What Would Hugh Do?]

I get asked stuff like this a lot. When I talk to small groups, when I sit across tables from the affluent… all of us have one on one interactions with homeless or suspected homeless. While it is obvious we need to do something, it is not clear exactly what that something is.

This man obviously has mental problems of some sort. He obviously has financial problems. He obviously has a hygiene problem. All of these are legitimate problems… but they are not the real problem.

The real problem is a relationship problem. If I were to develop mental problems, there are people in my life who would be concerned enough to see to it that I got the help I needed. If I have desperate financial problems, there are people who I could go to to get help. If I can not take a bath at home, there are people who will open their house and allow me to bathe there. This man is poor in a way I could never be, merely because of my relationships. I suspect you are probably in a similar situation.

When there is a disproportionate distribution of anything positive – power, wealth, prestige, privilege… anything at all – the responsibility for bridging the gap lies on the group that has more, not on the group that has less. In other words, it is up to us to ask how we can help. (Note: This is NOT the same as us deciding what needs to be done and then imposing it on them.) It is up to us to reach out and start those relationships that lead to change. It is up to us to initiate the shared meals, to start the conversations, to sacrifice the time we would spend with our privileged friends who are not as messy (or at least, not messy in the same way).

And to answer John’s question… I don’t know. If I only saw him the one time, there is not much I could do. I would pray for him, and have since I read John’s blog post. But if he was a regular part of my day, if I knew I would see him again, I would go out of my way to start a conversation with him. I would try to find common ground. I would learn his name and use it. I would try to remember things he told me, so I could talk about them the next time we met. In other words, I would try to befriend him.

And it might not work. We might not have any common ground. He may not like people from the South, or people who like cats, or any number of other silly reasons we humans have for not clicking with other humans. However, if in the course of his day he sees 100 people, odds are he would click with one of them if they would reach across the gap that separates his hell from their relative heaven. They just have to have the will to do it.

Dear Friends,

Jean has been in jail for 24 days, counting today. Wednesday was her court appearance, and before the day is done she will be sentenced to 150 days in jail.

A friend and I went and saw her last week. Well, we saw her over the grainy closed-circut TV screen they allowed us to “visit” over, in the Sheriff Department’s nod to technology. She had been in jail almost two weeks at that point and no one had come to visit her. When she saw us over that TV screen, she burst into tears and said “I knew you guys would come. I told the other people here that I have people, that I have folks who would come and see me. You guys are my family”.

How she got here is a long story, and almost beside the point. Here we are, nonetheless, and she is in jail and I am sitting here in the courtroom, waiting for them to call her case. I sit in the courtroom all day, listening to the court pass down judgment and, sometimes, mercy to those who have offended the state of North Carolina. Jean’s court date was set for 9:00am. Now it is after 1:00pm and still no sign of her. The population of the courtroom fluctuates with folks coming in and leaving – right now the room is about half full. The District Attorney calls her name, and a Bailiff goes into a back room and brings her out.

Her hair is normally slicked down, but now is nappy and dry. She looks like she has lost about 10 pounds. Because of the shackles around her feet, she shuffles rather than walks into the courtroom. The uniform she wears looks like something from a Charlie Chaplin movie and is designed to humble and humiliate her. It looks like it is working.

As soon as the door shuts behind her, she looks up and begins to scan the crowd. I sit up straight and wave. Her eyes light up and she bursts into a huge grin. Despite whatever she did to get here, whatever sentence the court passes down, whether she gets sent back to the hell that is jail or released to the hell that is her life, she will remember that on this day, her family came and sat with her. Whatever demons may come today, she will not have to face them alone. She has people.

When you boil it down, that is what we do out here – sit with people who have no one else. And we are only able to do it as long as you help support us. If you share our belief that by loving people who have no one else we move the kingdom of God forward, I hope you will consider helping to support us financially. I hate having to ask, but things are a bit tough right now.

Love Wins. Always.

Hugh Hollowell