If you know me well you know I am not a very empathetic person. I don’t cry often, like maybe once a year, and I really push down any emotion that isn’t joyful! Well… that’s not true about me anymore. I think God opened the floodgates of my heart and for the first time in my life I am becoming extremely empathetic.
Homeless people are very hard for me to love. All my life I have ignored them because the pain of actually looking them in they eyes and acknowledging their life circumstances is heartbreaking for me. So instead I chose to ignore. This is not possible on this trip. Every single day I talk to homeless people. I talk to them and pray for them but then immediately when I walk about I push about that sad emotion and try to forget about what happened.
Last month I met a man named Timothy who changed my life. My teammate Ashley walked into our room and said, “guys, this guy Timothy has been sitting in the same spot for two weeks and no one has given him anything… He smells so bad and he is so hungry. I want to buy him a room for tonight.” In the exact same moment my teammate Sydney gets a Venmo (online donation) from a guy named Timothy… coincidence? I think God. Sydney gave the $100 donation to Ashley and said go spend this on Timothy. The only problem is Ashley doesn’t know Spanish, so she needed me to translate. This was the first time in my life I spent hours with a homeless person. We brought him to the hostel and had to help him walk because he got an infection in his leg that could have easily been cured with hydrogen peroxide and bandaids, but because he is homeless it got so bad that his entire leg is swollen bigger than my head.
He told me his story. He was a normal man, lived a normal comfortable life. All his family passed away and he was left in this world totally alone. Then one day he got sick and had to pay crazy medical bills which drove him into debt, late bills and eventually eviction. Now he lives on the street by the Pumba gas station.
He looked me in the eyes after he was done with his story and said, “What will happen to me when you leave? Will I go back to the streets?”
My heart dropped into my stomach as I held back tears.
“Only God knows where you will go Timothy… but yes, we will have to drop you back off on the road…”
I turned around after ending the conversation and tears streamed down my face and I could barely breath. I finally felt the depth of sorrow, anger, frustration, confusion and sadness that was there all my life that I ignored. I screamed at God.
“Why do people have to sleep on the road every night?! Why do people die daily because of hunger and the lack of clean water? WHY IS THERE POVERTY WHEN THE WORLD HAS SO MANY RESOURCES! WHY IS THERE EVIL?!?”
I couldn’t stop crying and then the Lord said to me, “imagine how much more my heart breaks for these people.”
For the first time I felt a small glimpse of the heart of God for the poor.
So now, every time I speak to a homeless family I cry after. It’s a beautiful, empathetic, loving and hopeful cry. It’s hopeful because Jesus says, “blessed are the poor in spirit, for yours is the Kingdom of God” (Matthew 5).
I had a moment in Colombia the other day where a family who fled Venezuela came to our worship session. It was late and they needed to go because they pay for a room in a homeless shelter every night. If they don’t have the money, or they don’t get there in time they sleep on the street instead. There were three little girls no older than 10, 7 and 5. However, they said they would stay because the Lord was more important than a roof over their heads. I was the only one who spoke Spanish around and I know two songs – “Open the Eyes of my Heart Lord” and “How Great is our God.” So Alex played those songs on the guitar and everyone sang them in English while I sang in Spanish with the family. There were tears in everyone’s eyes. We went on worshipping for an hour in English and they sang whatever words came to their hearts in Spanish. It was a holy moment. As they left the tears came again. I held them back as they hugged every single person in our group blessing us and us blessing them. When they hugged the last person I couldn’t hold it together. My heart bursted. I have no idea where they slept that night. I have no idea how evil and poverty will attack them later this month. However, I know that my God is good. I know that he cares and I know that he weeps with us because of the evil we let into this world in the garden of Eden.
I know that my God is good.
