Norm’s Notes March 9, 2017
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Some of the People God has Brought Across My Path Recently
(The Real Short Version)
(Names have been changed) It started Saturday, January 7. I got a phone call from a family having their family Christmas party at the church. A homeless couple, unmarried, came to the church seeing all the cars. I went to the church to check it out. The couple, “Joe” and Jane”, had been living in their car for two weeks. They are from Michigan but have Florida license plates on their very old car. The church paid for their stay at University Inn for several weeks. I talked with them and thought and prayed. I thought if we held their hands for several weeks we may be able to change their life situation. She got a job; he is unemployable. We helped them with food and they were able to get some services at The Northeastern Center. They applied for and got food stamps. I was in touch with them about every other day for various things for about 7 weeks.
When I was in Florida, I received a text from Joe saying the Angola police had removed the license plate from their car. I called city detective Tim (real name) and found out the license had been reported stolen out of Michigan. (Joe and Jane had been given the license plate by a friend.) I asked Tim to please “ignore” this couple driving around with no license plates or their situation was going backward real fast. They were not arrested. City police are very good people!
I got Joe to help clean out the garage of a person who had to move in a hurry as the house was being sold at sheriff sale. In that garage there were A LOT of baseball cards. Joe and I loaded up my truck full of the cards and took them to the Inn. Joe was going to sell them, and I encouraged him to do so.
One day I got a phone call from Joe – “the tie rod just broke on the front end of our car, what do I do?” I told him to park it on the side of the road and call a tow truck to junk it. That is what he did.
Saturday morning, February 25, I was at a church meeting in Elkhart when I got a text from Joe. Jane left him to go back to Michigan and took all their money and Joe had been told he had to be out of the Inn by 11:00. I told him to put his stuff on the front porch and I would be there at 1:00. I picked him up and we talked in my office for about three hours that afternoon. The condensed version is he sold the baseball cards for $200 cash (a very good deal). They got $200 cash for the junk car on the spot. (Another very good deal.) Jane’s first check was $400 take home so they got $800 in their hand in one week. She took it all and ran away.
At this point I decided to cut my losses on this situation. Compassion fatigue that day. I get that sometimes. I needed to move Joe on to his next spot in life, but I didn’t know where that would be. I called regional shelters, but Joe said he was not going to any of them. I was actually ready to take him to the mound in Angola and put him, his suitcases, and his backpack on the steps and leave him there. He knew I meant business. Joe has a cousin in Angola that had totally disowned him, but Joe wanted to go there and talk to him in person. I waited in the car while Joe and the cousin talked. About 15 minutes later the cousin took Joe in. I do not know what will become of Joe and Jane.
Joe and Jane were in my life for seven weeks, almost to the hour. In the end it appears I may not have made a difference here. You just never know.
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It’s great to be your Caring Pastor. See you Sunday.
Norm
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