Steven here of the Karpophoreō Project. Check out the latest KP newsletter written below.
Steven
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Dear Friends and Supporters of the Karpophoreō Project,
My sleep was arrested in the middle of the night by a phone call. Knowing that no one would call at that hour were it not an emergency, I stumbled out of bed and answered as quickly as I could. One of our community members, overcome with a grief that annually reoccurs during this holiday season, considered suicide while being inebriated. A neighbor called the police when the episode became public. Calling me that night was the closest friend of this person, asking if I would allow the community member to stay on my couch for the night. The police had threatened arrest if the community member was found outside again that night. And so, in the early hours of the morning, I was making a bed and asking about the source of that night’s troubles.
What is the Karpophoreō Project? Many of you have asked me that question and I have striven to give you the most complete answer I could. Is it a homelessness project? Is it a recovery project…? Is it a Life skills…jobs…housing…gospel…sustainability project? Yes. Over the course of the last 5 months, I now understand the KP is all of those things and more. Most fundamentally, it is a people project. We seek to see a person as God’s sees them and to maintain, against all accusers, that there is hope for their future; to understand what God would have them do, what he would have us do for them, in order to bring about a unique manifestation of his glory through that person’s life.
Some of you have noticed that my job description is listed as “Good Soil Developer”. I have known that to be my calling for several years now, but am finding it more true every day. It comes from Jesus’ Parable of the Sower. As you likely know the parable well, I will say only this: the gospel seed is scattered along several different soil conditions. Each soil receives the seed as it is able. All but one of the soils is limited in its ability to receive the true purpose for which the seed was planted, being unable to transform it into a fruit-bearing plant. The failure is not that of the seed but the soil conditions as they existed before, and continue to exist after, the soil and seed were wed. What can be done for these harsh soils? Should we abandon them in our search for worthy recipients of these seeds of “Good News”? Of course not. Rather, we develop the soils as we are able, fostering for them an environment that can bear good fruit from the seeds that are sown. That is what we are striving to do at the Karpophoreō Project. And to do this, we earnestly request your prayer intercession for us who are giving our lives to this goal as well as for those who have made it through so much to be here, alive and hopeful about their future. This is not a project that can be built solely by human hands.
On a logistical note, we will be making a trial run at the Sunset Valley Farmer’s Market this Saturday from 9-1pm. We will be selling our very first harvest of the season as well as some winter hats that one of our community members has begun to knit to pay her utilities for the winter. It will be a small harvest but the fruit (or, vegetables and greens in this case) is/are good! If you’re in the area, stop in and say hi.
We were dropped off at Woolridge Park on Friday afternoon, a downtown gathering spot for the homeless, and a nightly stop for the Mobile Loaves and Fishes truck, which delivers sandwiches, eggs, fruit and snacks for the homeless daily. We visited with some folks, got our sandwiches, ate and then walked to Guadalupe. A church there allows the homeless to sleep in the parking lot on Friday nights only, and serves breakfast in the morning. We scrounged a piece of cardboard from a dumpster to lay down on the pavement and slept there with about 30 other people. It was a pretty rowdy scene. Lots of talking, a little yelling and fighting, that went on till about 4 in the morning. It was quiet from 4-6 am, then people started getting up. I tossed and turned all night. Fortunately it didn't rain and it wasn't that cold (60 degrees) but it was a sleepless night. This is considered a safe place, on Friday nights at least. One of the hardest things for homeless people has to be finding where to sleep each night. Some of them have a hidden spot, where they can keep their stuff, keep their bedroll, go every night and be hidden away from cops and other homeless. Many of them just find a different place each night, a place that’s not on private property, where the cops and security guards won’t hassle you, and hopefully where other homeless will not find you and steal your shoes or other stuff, or worse, beat you up or hurt you while you’re asleep.
The homeless in general are not violent people, but they have to have an edge just to survive on the street, and occasionally this anger, bitterness, and violence comes out. They have to be able to put out a tough demeanor, when necessary, just to protect themselves on the street.
Saturday morning we went into the church for the free breakfast. I’d say there were around 100 homeless who came for the breakfast. Here we heard so many stories…..J, a talented musician who turned down a chance to play in the band with the Black Crowes and is now on the street after a bad accident and the onset of MS rendered him unable to work or even play much music. He did play on the piano in the church, but his hands, stiff, from MS, failed him. E, who is a computer programmer and computer fix-it man, is educated and well-spoken, obviously quite intelligent. He cannot get work because he has a drug conviction. J, who looks like a well-off college student, prides himself on not appearing homeless (he takes a shower every day at the Austin Resource Center for the Homeless, keeps all his stuff in a locker there, and works 2-3 days a week). Some of these people, you have to ask, why are they homeless?
The stories are haunting, but as you listen, you realize there is a level of lying inside many of the stories. One man said to me that those on the street are there because something went wrong (lost a job, foreclosed on their house, got divorced) and then they missed an opportunity to fix it. There is a lot of mental illness for sure, but there is also a lot of addiction to drugs and alcohol. Most of them are battling this at some level, but they don’t talk about this to us, except in wry, oblique, passing references. I asked one man who was panhandling, “Are you getting what you need today?” and he said “Somehow every day I get what I need. I don’t always get what I want, but what I want isn’t good for me.” There is much truth to their stories, but they are also very good at sugarcoating things, omitting the ugly details, and expert at garnering sympathy. This does not necessarily reduce our sympathy, but it is important to know that things are not always as simple as they might appear, and there are deep-seated problems simmering below the surface. Truthfulness is not a highly prized commodity on the street, history is fluid, when you are roaming and wandering, who is to question you and say what is or is not true? Truthfulness is not actually necessary for survival.
After breakfast we walked to the east side of Austin, to attend the Homeless Resource Fair (formerly called Stand Down). They were giving out free T-shirts, and one woman kept going back to get more free shirts, maybe 20 or 30 in total. She says she will share them with other homeless. Or will she sell them? It doesn’t matter……..it’s about survival. One thing you will find is that the homeless can be quite generous with each other. A homeless woman we didn’t know saw the bags we were carrying and identified us as homeless and offered us some of her extra sandwiches. There is a network of sharing and looking out for each other that we always don’t see in “normal” society. There is also instant recognition among the homeless, a community of people, that is, if they can ID you as homeless, they will immediately come up to you and start talking to you. You are one of us, therefore you are ok.
At the fair we met M, who went on the street in January. He has a really nice bike, nice clothes, and a very optimistic and unbelievably happy attitude. He says when he went on the street he randomly opened the Bible and came upon the verse where it says the Lord will provide (for the birds, for the flowers, for you – I can’t quote the verse). He says he has never hungered, he always has found enough to eat. A lady at the church asked him to paint her empty house, and he was able to live there for a few months. Why is this man homeless??? He has a tattooed tear under his eye, so we know he was in prison. He tells us he has a drug conviction, so he can’t be hired for a job, unless it is in cash, under the table. Are these people permanently barred from working? What is the matter with our system?
Walk back to the park to meet the MLF truck. It’s a lovely day, many homeless are lounging in the park, visiting, napping, sharing some food, reading the newspaper, playing dominoes. This is the best part of the day. When it is warm and sunny and you see the camaraderie. We see V, whom we have known for years on the MLF runs. He is a very small Mexican man, quite educated, he speaks Spanish, English and Greek. Every time I have seen him, he is so neat and clean, and his plaid cotton shirt is always miraculously pressed. He reads the newspaper every day and has vocal opinions about Obama, health care, immigration, and various other policies. We have heard bits of his story over the years. He worked in restaurants in the US for years, until he got laid off. He is a legal alien, and has a green card. He is homeless, but has a friend who drives him to San Marcos every day where he works in a convenience store from 9 pm-3 am. He had a place to live, but gave it up, he doesn’t want to pay rent and instead wants to save his money. He needs $10,000 to go home to Mexico and open a grocery there. I say to him, just go home, your family will help you. He says no. Surely there is much to the story I don’t know, but there is also pride, he is the one who came to America and succeeded, and he will go home with cash in his pocket and start the business and in turn employ his family.
We get our food from the MLF truck. Someone asked Alan Graham, our fearless leader and founder of Mobile Loaves and Fishes, if feeding the homeless like this is enabling them. Alan is a very peaceful person, but this is the closest to angry I have ever seen him. He says that is a perversion of the word “enabling.” Food is fundamental to survival. Food is at least one thing the homeless in Austin do not have to worry about.
The sun is setting and it is time to find another piece of cardboard and a place to sleep for the night. J invited us to sleep in a church parking lot he sleeps in, but we have mistaken the address and cannot find it. We scout along San Antonio street. There are little dark alleys and nooks, these seem like good places, but will rats or raccoons or possums come out of the darkness? We find what we think is a clever spot, a hidden ledge in a parking garage. The garage is for a law office and it is Saturday night, so it is completely deserted. We are quite hidden, but about 9 pm, a security guard pulls into the garage and asks us to leave. He is on the rounds and surely we are not the first people to find this spot. Good we didn’t get arrested, because that can happen too. Despite its friendliness to homeless, Austin has a no-camping ordinance.
So we leave and go to another church parking lot we have heard about. There we find C, who has been on the street for 21 years. He is Lakota Indian and “loco” as he says (he translates this as “nutjob”) which allows him to get disability every month and puts cash in his pocket. He has a Blackberry and is permanently wired and tapping away at it nonstop. He is a little guy with a big attitude. Actually a very sweet guy, but the attitude is clearly necessary to protect himself on the street. We run into him several times, and he acts like a big brother to us, gives us tips – for example, never ever take your shoes off, even when you are sleeping, or someone will steal them. And where would you be with no shoes? In deep trouble. He has a son and a wife in Kansas. He says he will go there to live with them in December. I pray I don’t see him on the MLF run in December and that he actually makes it to Kansas.
We sleep in the church parking lot, another restless night. My husband, Rusty, tells me later that a homeless man walked up to where we were sleeping in the middle of the night and stood there. I was asleep. Rusty wondered if he would try to take something or try to harm us. But he merely stood there and then walked away. This is the risk. The utter lack of security when you are sleeping on the street. You have to sleep, but how can you possibly protect yourself?
C rouses us as 5 am, because it is Sunday and soon people will be arriving at the church. The homeless respect these parameters (don’t pee near the church, leave at 5 am, take away the cardboard when you wake up) because this protects the place for future sleeping. They know if they abuse the privilege, the church will take it away.
So we wander. It is 5 am and still dark. We sit on a park bench downtown. The sheriff’s dept is having a shift change and about 10 sheriff dept employees pull out of the parking lot and pass by us. They regard us from the safety of their cars. I am nervous here, I don’t know if one of them will just stop and decide to harass us. Is it illegal to sit on a park bench at 5 am? I don’t know what the law is about loitering, which is clearly what we’re doing. Probably it is illegal, but not enforced. No one bothers us this morning.
I think the thing that would sap you most is the boredom. Nothing to do, nowhere to go, no work, no purpose. Now the homeless do have to devote a certain part of each day to getting food, seeing their caseworker, finding a bathroom, finding clothing, seeking shelter for the night. That takes some time. But much of their day is vacant. This ennui will run anyone straight into the ground I think. The anger and depression will inevitably lead to alcohol and drugs for many, to soothe the pain. It is an endless, vicious cycle for some. Some retreat to the library and read all day long. These are the guys on the street who will quote Descartes to you. But these guys are few and far between.
Alan says we can help, but there is no solution to homelessness. We are not going to end homelessness, it’s not possible. But you will meet some people whom you believe really can get off the street. They will not get off the street until they are ready to. They have to take the initiative and do it. But when they are ready, with our help and the help of other organizations, it is possible and some of them will actually do it.
For 17 years, House the Homeless has met on Auditorium Shores and honored the men women and children who have died either without homes or loved ones to claim them. This year, we will once again read their names and remember them.
The Sun Rise Service will commence at exactly 7:00 am. Please join us at South First and Riverside at the Homeless Memorial and Tree of remembrance. It is located 75 yards east of the Stevie Ray Vaughn statue. Bring a jacket and a camera. We'll bring some coffee, cocoa, a bite to eat, song, prayer and fellowship.
As you may know, this is National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week. Richard Troxell will be receiving the Proclamation from City Council Member Randi Shade on Thursday Nov. 19th at 5:30-6:00pm in Council Chambers. All are welcome.
Mobile Loaves & Fishes has implemented a sustainable food project called Korpophoreo (Bearing Fruit in Every Good Work). You can see our entire concept at http://www.mlfnow.org/kp. One element of Korpophoreo is we (MLF staff and the formerly homeless now living in http://www.mlfnow.org/HOW) come to your home and build gardens in your backyard. If desired a chicken coop with chickens too!! You pay for the expense for the install and like your yard man (will be your food man) we come weekly to help you manage your sustainable food endeavors. We split the harvest 50/50. From this powerful things happen; for you you get to consume the best food on the planet and/or share the best food on the planet with your friends and family and/or all that and let our folks have more of the harvest so they can do what you do plus perhaps sell some of theirs at the local farmers markets. So our formerly homeless brothers and sisters get the highest level of nutrition available on the planet and are able to earn a little money and get connected to our creator through small farming projects. Check out the video below of our beta project in my backyard and contact us.
… having to sleep in the woods, hold a sign to make it through a day, or use the drugs” that had consumed 80 percent of my life, as I quickly approached 52 years old. That was the prayer shared with me by a friend I call my angel and 1 year and two nights ago we prayed that prayer as she gave me a ride to a hotel to sleep comfortably in a bed for the first time in almost 3 years. October 31, 2008 I used my last time, one and a half hours before walking into Austin Recovery and began living my life drug free. That angel’s help was the God of my understanding doing, for me, what I could not do for myself. My name is Gary and I am, very gratefully, a recovered heroin addict.
November 1, 2009 I walked out of the “home” I live in today, looked up into a starry clear sky lit only by the moon, and cried to that God, in gratitude, that I don’t have to live like that anymore. “God saved a wretch like me”; ain’t it cool!
Even though I have been in jail at least 30 times since 1975 (3 times incarcerated in the Texas Department of Corrections), stolen something from almost every individual I have known (whether for financial gain or personal satisfaction), threatened or hurt everyone that ever showed love or care for me (relationships, friends, and family), or faced the humiliation and forfeited my personal welfare to live under bridges and in the woods to nurture my disease of addiction, my God continued to love me and keep me, to see today.
It is evident, from what I have shared so far, that I was powerless over the disease of addiction and I found my life totally unmanageable. I realized that I was still alive by something’s Grace. Hell, I’ve tried to kill myself because I was powerless and tired of hurting others and myself. That’s insane! The only solution I could come to was to turn my will and life over to whatever had kept me alive this long. I stood on that corner, one night just over a year ago, and tears flowed as I told it, “God, I can’t go on living like this. I cannot see myself standing out here, begging for $100/ day, chasing a dopeman, and expect to live another 10 years much less see the 52nd birthday coming in 2 months.” As I searched through a tattered wallet the next morning looking for a phone number to score, I found the number given to me by volunteers from Mobile Loaves and Fishes, a christian ministry that help the homeless. This number was the volunteer’s personal cell phone and I left the same message with them I had spoken to God. The week previous to this day I shared with them why I was living like I was living. They had related to me they understood how I felt because someone close to them had suffered much the same as I had, but had found a solution. Within less than 24 hours of that message my angel, Kay, appeared at my corner and asked “Where were you at 7:00 last night?” I responded and she said “We had a bed for you at the Austin Recovery Treatment Facility.” I felt as if I had played my last card and lost, until she said, “But we have another for you tomorrow if you still want to go.” I said yes, and she picked me up around 6:30 pm that night. As we drove away to the hotel she pointed at the setting sun and shared that prayer with me that this would be “the last sunset…”.
Although I have entered treatment 6 times previous and detoxed many times, it was not by my choice. I could not do it for the parents, the relationships, or the judicial system. I was not ready to admit, surrender, or conclude the fact that no human, including myself, could stop me from doing what I thought I “wanted” to do.
This time, I was ready. I was ready to admit I was powerless, my life was unmanageable and this God could restore some sanity to it, so I turned my will and my life over to Him. I took a look, with a clear mind, at the wreckage my addiction had created in my life. I began to realize the part I had played in all of it. I admitted my part to God, a trusted individual, and myself what I saw I had done. I became willing, reluctantly sometimes, to make amends for the harms I created. I was ready to have God remove the character defects I saw in myself. I asked Him to do so. I have made a futile attempt to make those amends, as long as it did not create more harm. I continue, on a daily basis, to take a personal inventory. I realize I have not completely allowed my God to take all of my character defects, but today I am more aware of them and how they affect others, and when I recognize I’m wrong I admit it.
For almost 40 years I had depended on drugs and alcohol to “have fun”, “celebrate”, help me grieve, get me through the day. The road went on forever but the party had to end, sooner or later. For me, the party had ended a long time ago. At that point in my life, and many years previous, I lived to use and used drugs to live. My only reason for being, my existence, was to make enough money to get the drugs I needed to get through another day; and without those drugs I felt I would not make it through another day. For just one day, the last 365 days I have made it through the day without them. That is “the miracle”, to me, of a loving and forgiving God that I now see has never left my side regardless of the paths I chose to wander. His love for me is not really a miracle, in a sense, because today I realize He shares that same love for every man, woman, child, addict, or victim He created and gave life to.
Working these steps has taught me, through prayer and meditation, to have a more conscious contact with my God and His will for my life. He gives me the strength to carry that out. I carry the message of what my God has done for me daily in my life. I humble myself and face the humility of admitting I am an addict. Through honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness I have recovered and continue to recover. I feel this is my purpose, to show the love and blessings my God has given me to others still suffering.
The mental affects of hopelessness and worthlessness are being lifted; I have regrets but cannot change the past, the present is just that- a present; the physical affects of a liver disease contracted over 23 years ago are still there; the future is not promised. My purpose in life is to share this with another addict and pray, “They are ready”. I hope it creates a desire for them to stay clean today. I did, just for today, and have for the last 365 days. Please love yourself. My God loves you and so do I.
A man spoke to me of his drug use at the weekly HOW
Community Breakfast this morning.It
didn’t matter what was offered to him in the way of support groups, friendship,
needles, etc.Nothing could motivate him
to kick the habit.He said the change
had to first come from within himself for the help to be effective.
He quit “using” three years after he began to want it, nearly
four decades after he began to need it.Some
folk were willing to help him but their willingness was ignored for years
before it was required.And when he did
require it, it was a dire necessity.His
drug use was all-consuming until death was staring at him.By that point, his “choice” was hardly a
choice at all.But it was always a
choice for those extending it.They
could have rescinded it at any time.
The turmoil within a person living with an addiction is a
mystery to those looking on.The heart
of someone extending help is also a mystery.Why don’t they give up?
Another man at the breakfast, also a former drug user, said
he’s found just as much addiction in the collective distractions of his life
since he’s been clean.Searching the
internet, working, shopping (another guy added “laziness”) have just as much
potential to derail life as drugs.It
made sense to me.There have been great
stretches of my life where afterward I’ve looked back and seen nothing but a
consumptive “searching” for some type of elusive addictive filler.
How do those of us suffering from normal addictions find
freedom?Must we wait for our credit
cards to be maxed out, our time to be used up, or our kids to be left without a
father or mother because of our addictive distractions?Will it take some form of death’s cold stare
for us to wake up and address the life we’re snuffing out?
How do we find the freedom to be part of the solution?How can we fight our addiction to move from
the hospital of the injured to staff the teams that are trying to help?
The solutions to homelessness and drug use, the solutions to
addiction and addictive behaviors are not so different for many of us who like
to think we are on the outside looking in. Recovery begins within ourselves.Addictions will not go away of their own
accord.Recovery also requires people who
are willing to help.People willing to extend
their help regardless of any obvious reward of supposed “success”; the kind
Jesus touted who “do not only love those who can love them back”.To do this requires a heart that remains open
amidst much rejection, hurt, and abuse.
What can compel a person to love in such a way?Jesus said: “He who
believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25-26). For all concerned, both
the addicted and those wanting to serve the recovering, all must face their
imminent death or they will be unprepared for the death that they do face.Amen?
To join
in the Karpophoreō Project community (www.mlf.org/KP),
a community of the addicted, the recovering, and those willing to face death, contact
Steven (Steven@mlfnow.org).We meet weekly
to garden and fellowship.
