Kingdom Pursuits, where you hear from ordinary people instilled with an extraordinary passion. Together we explore the stories of men and women who take what they love and let God turn their passion into Kingdom Pursuits.
Now, live from the Truth Booth, your host, Robbie Dilmore. Good morning. You would think this was Robbie Dilmore, but you'd be wrong. This is Bill Mixon. I've got the great pleasure of filling in for Robbie.
I help out with the Christian Car Guy Show on a regular basis. But when things are going wonderful, Robbie will call up and ask me if I'm willing to come in and host Kingdom Pursuits. And I like that because I get to invite some of the most interesting people in the world to come on and talk. And I've got one of my heroes here. When COVID hit and everybody else went and hid, when all the other organizations I worked with just about closed up, City with Dwelling stayed open and worked with the people that Needed the help the most.
And Lee is the heart and soul, and one of the key people at City with Dwellings. Welcome, Lee. Thank you. It's so great to be with you all. And then we've got Carter Ferguson, who's a pastor with New Story United Methodist Church.
And they've got hooked up with Lee trying to figure out a way to help people that don't have a home.
Now, you know. In Winston-Salem, it's sort of amazing to think about how many people are in our county that don't have a home. If you've ever seen a shopping cart in a really strange place, if you will slow down, you will see a well-worn track through the grass into the woods near that shopping cart, and there will be between three to twelve people down the end of that path. If you will pay attention when you're driving down the main roads about 20 feet past where they stop mowing, if you will look more often than you will imagine, there will be tarps set up and tents set up. And the greener it gets, the harder it is to see them.
But in our county, I bet we've got about a thousand people that live under the stars. And one of the things that City Wood Dwelling does is it has a wonderful young man who goes out into the woods and talks to the people behind the Costco and behind the shopping centers and tries to bring services to them. Lee, would you talk to us a little bit about how many homeless we've got in our county? Yes, so if you're looking at national numbers, they are up 18%, but that's just a one-night. Deal.
770,000 people, up 18% from last year. But that's that's a one shot for one night. And But the number that we like to look at is the number of folks experiencing homelessness that we work with. We see their faces every day.
So between a collaboration with the Winston-Salem Police Department and the County Sheriff's Department and EMS and Mobile Integrated Health and behavioral health teams, we're thinking it's closer to 1,000 people that are experiencing street homelessness in our county. That does not count the folks that are experiencing homelessness in treatment centers or in the shelters, the brick-and-mortar shelters, or in the rehab places. That is just literally street homeless, a place not meant for human habitation that is outside of a shelter. You know, it's amazing how many people there are in our county in the jail. That we have one gentleman that comes through City with dwellings that a few years ago, the call would be he's walking around without any clothes on again.
He would be found trying to clean up, using toilet water to clean himself up. He had six personalities. Three. Three personalities. And there were days that I'd try to talk to him, and it was like talking to a wall.
And in the last three years, it's just amazing to me how much he's blossomed and how much he's come around. But point being, there are a whole lot of people walking around that when you see him today, You'd never dream that they were homeless. And if you saw them at their worst day two months ago, you'd say, I don't see how this person could be housed. I don't know about you, but I know in my family, we've got some mental illness in some of the folks that, you know, on their good days, they're just absolutely wonderful. As a gentleman that was in the military and worked in the Navy for years, had four kids, and two of them had serious problems, and one of them didn't have any problems at all.
And the problems that Their mother went through trying to deal with them was just absolutely. I could not deal with that. And these type folks come through city with dwellings. We got people that come through that got off the bus and the bus left them and they have no money on them at all. We've got people that their friends, they thought were friends, leaving them off at the side of the highway as they drove through.
Lee, tell us a story or two that really pulls at your heartstrings. Yeah, so one of the stories that pulls at my heartstring a lot are men that lose their spouses. They've got a home, they've got a car, they've got community, they lose their spouse, they spiral into such adeps of depression that they start losing it all. Everything starts leaving them. No one wants to be with them anymore.
They're losing their job, they're losing their car, they've lost their house. That is just such a sad thing to watch. You know, a man in his 60s lose it all from just grief. And sometimes that morphs itself into self-medication. And also families.
The families with children, they've been working. It's not like they get to go to the movies with their children. They can't afford that, but they've been paying their rent. They have been paying their utilities. They have been cobbling together enough money.
to either take the bus to to get to work and back, or they have been fixing a car up to get to work and back, and now their rent has almost doubled. And they they can't handle it anymore. And so You know, luckily, they might have a car to live in, but these are people that have been working like our older community with rent going up so fast and many times doubling. And when you are living, you've worked your whole life, you're living on your Social Security income, you may not be able to take a vacation to Italy, but you have been making it. And then all of a sudden, you can't make it anymore.
And you're out on the street, and there's no place for you to go. You know, I've talked to an insurance agent for 35 years. There are people out there that have. Jobs and they're getting by, or they're within a couple dollars each week of getting by, and then the car. problem comes and they've got a two thousand dollar sometimes a two hundred dollar problems big enough you have a two thousand dollar car problem or the car just quits altogether and you've already financed that car so much that you can't pull any money out of it so you can't get anybody to finance that new car well your bus system if you're lucky you within a half mile of getting to a city bus then you got to take the city bus downtown then you got to wait for the right bus to get you to your employer if you're lucky enough that your employer is on that bus route so you could be looking at a three-hour Transportation situation going and coming.
So losing that car stops the paycheck from coming in. And as soon as the bills start coming in, one bad check can cost you an extra $75 by the time you get it fixed. There are people that are homeless because of a small car problem. We've got folks all around us that are really struggling.
Some of them don't have a wonderful church like the church you belong to.
Some of them don't have a wonderful family where they can call up a couple people and cry and get a little bit of money.
Some folks don't have three or four friends that have the extra to be able to dig into their pocket and make a gift to you to solve a problem. Homelessness looks a lot different than the guy standing on the side of a road with a piece of cardboard that says, willing to work for money.
Now, there are probably a lot of you that don't believe his card, and if it did, you don't have a job for him, and you really don't want to put them in the car to come to your house to mow you grass.
So, we had these blinders on us, and we think all the other people out there that are homeless look just like those people that we pay attention to. If we will realize that On top of the thousand people that city with dwellings know of in our county that don't have a roof, there are a whole lot of people that got arrested and are sitting in jail for really small, minor stuff that you and I could come up with an attorney and get out for. There are a whole lot of people that are sitting in the hospital for a week in one of the mental health wards. There are a whole lot of people that are just stumbling around hiding from people because they don't want them to know that they're homeless. These are the folks we need to be praying for.
And if you'll please stick with us, we'd love to talk a little bit about this on the other side of the break. You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Good morning. This is Kingdom Pursuits. This is Bill Mixon filling in for Robbie Dilmore.
I've got some wonderful guests on with me today. We're talking about homelessness and the need for affordable housing. And we've been saying that homelessness really doesn't look like what I hear often from other people. That it's a lot more than the person standing on the side of the road with a cardboard sign. It's young mothers with kids.
It's, you know, in our county, how many places are there to go if I've got a child and I'm trying to find a roof over my health? One. And it has quite a waiting list to get into. And it... They can only take a certain amount of people, and it's designed so that there's six to a room.
So you could put a mama and two children, and another mama and two children, but a dad and a mom and two children, you can't add another mom. You know, that makes sense.
So you've got to separate the families. Our local Salvation Army has a whole new wing that is not open because they can't afford to finish it and they can't afford to staff it. And so that's heartbreaking enough. And the only other place for women to go in for Sythe County is the Bethesda Center. There are 30 beds.
They stay full all the time. They don't take kids. They don't take kids. And so, you know, you can go and ask for a bed. There may be one.
Or two a week, but these places stay packed, full, and also they're congregate shelters.
So it is people literally stacked on top of each other in bunk beds doing the best they can, which is a terrible way to heal.
Now, we've got shelters in town if you're an addict, but if you're not an addict, then the only place I know that you can go and knock on the door is Samaritan Ministries. Right, or the Bethesda Center. But the rescue mission we do have. You can be homeless and go to the rescue mission, but it's a 90-day substance use disorder program. Yeah, it's not it's it's it's it's going to address that issue and your issue of homelessness, but But and we're grateful to have them in our area, but that is it's not a shelter.
And it's most none of these places, you walk all the way across town, you get all the way there, you've got to show up at the right time. At Samaritan, what is it? You've got to get there at 6. 5 o'clock. 5 o'clock, and then at what time do they start checking the list?
I think they, well, it depends if it's winter or summer, but I think it's 7. But at 5.30, a monitor comes, and the monitor can say, we've got empty beds, and I'll come out and talk to you.
So the monitor will at 5, you know, we try to have people there at 5 o'clock. But there's a check-in process. Until they close the check-in process, they don't know how many beds they have. That's right. You could probably, if they say no beds last night, so we have to wait, it's a two-hour wait for you to wait.
And everybody else comes in and has dinner, but you're not able to, yes. And then your only opportunity is to walk four blocks up to the Bethesda Center that may or may not have. A space on the floor to lay down on. It's a yes.
Well, and they nobody's laying on the floor anymore.
So it's if there's if the beds are full, the beds are full. There's no overflow opportunities. Then you're in the worst part of town in the dark trying to figure out what in the world you're going to do. Yes, with no food opportunity and no shelter opportunity, and you just. You have to do the best you can.
Now, I would encourage all of you in your community, in your city, to make some phone calls and figure out what you would do if somebody was standing in front of you and they had absolutely nothing, they had a halfway, decent, good excuse, and you were going to figure out how to take care of this person, where would you send them? Call 211 and do a little bit of research. Figure out What resource sources are available. And I'd encourage you to put together a list of six or eight different places in your community that somebody can go to get help. In our community, there's a place called Where do we send somebody for money to help with their rent?
Crisis control. Crisis control. Crisis control's got a grocery store, they've got money for a number of different situations. You still have to have a lot of information to come in, pay stubs, and rent paperwork, and things that you've got to do to fill it out. Then we've got the food bank.
In our area, we've got a spectacular food bank, and there are all kinds of places that, if you're in the right place at the right time in the county, where you can get food. And then Samaritan Ministries got a lunch. Anybody can come 365 days a year. To have those resources on a piece of paper when somebody's standing by your window and you'd like to help them. I don't think you should give them money.
I think what you should do is to have a gallon bag in your back seat with a bottle of water in it, a couple snacks, that resource list in it, and hand it to the person with or without a small Bible in it and say, look, give me your first name and I'm going to be praying for you. One thing I really love is you can get a couple friends of yours or your Sunday school class and you can go to a park close to your church and you can put a sign up. You can have a nice one made, not too expensive. This is Prayer Station. And you can sit in the park and when people come up, you can have a box of Bibles that you can offer folks and you can say, what can we pray for you for?
And then have that resource list. And if you're smart, on the bottom of the list, you'll put your church's name and the address, maybe a map on the back. If you're brave, you can put a name and a phone number on it that we'll be glad to help if you run out. But if you will get the person's name and their phone number, there'll be a lot of people that aren't homeless. There'll be a lot of people that have really nice homes.
I've seen eight or nine college students come and get a break big prayer circle. And you let those people know that you're going to be praying for them all week. And then Saturday you call them and you say, You remember me from the park last Saturday? We've been praying for you all week long. How are you doing?
And after they tell you, you can tell them. you get together with your best friends on Sunday and that you'd be glad to come pick them up or you'd be glad to help them figure out how to get to your church. What are you doing to be Christ in your community? What are you doing to recognize the people that God put in your path so that you could pray for them, or you could reach out and help them, or you can give them a little bit of advice or a little bit of direction? Because the people that you see around you that need help were put there on purpose by God for you, a believer.
to make a difference in their life.
Now, in our case, we've got a wonderful pastor with us, Carter Ferguson, who's a pastor at New Story United Methodist Church, and his congregation is taking a great big step to make an even bigger difference in his community. Carter, tell us about the project your church is working on. Yeah, we're working on creating a we're gonna start really quite small. creating a village next door to the church or folks is exactly like what you're talking about. Our idea initially is to reach out to people who are sometimes families, sometimes individuals, sometimes it's to income people who are staying in hotels and paying $1,500 a rent a month in rent.
And they can't go get a house. They can't get a rent house. They can't down payment on the house because they're literally house poor, but they don't have a house. A hotel.
So, what we're looking at doing is inviting them to come and stay in one of these. called Plaid Homes. We've got a wonderful partnership with this company called Plaid Homes, which is modular houses. and inviting them to come and stay in these houses for a period of time.
So they can get their feet underneath them and while they're working and then getting, you know, get enough money and savings to put down a deposit for rent. or something like that. And just inviting people to come in, and we're hoping maybe we can address some of these families because, as Lisa said, families. Yeah. is such a huge problem in Forsyth County because of the lack of resources for it.
Lou, you have this wonderful idea that just sounds great to me. We've only got a minute before, but give them a teaser and then after the commercial, we can talk more about your dream. Yeah, I think we are built as humans to be in community and care for one another, but we don't have a lot of neighborhoods like that.
Some of our more affluent neighbors have that opportunity, but we have a lot of poverty in Forsyth County, and it's a high number nationwide, unfortunately. If you are born in poverty, you're going to die in poverty in Forsyth County. And imagine a world where we were wrapping people in community, in healthy community, with accountability and love and care and resources, yes, but offering the person the dignity to be able to garner those resources on their own.
Now, what have you run into? Not in my backyard. We've seen a lot of, we've had one of our state senators was trying to create a piece of legislation that would make it easier to build an apartment complex on your church property or to make some more. Places to live in the community, but there's some folks that need a lot more supervision than others. You have an idea about housing some of those folks that need a little bit more supervision.
Yes, we've actually traveled a bit and seen success stories around the country. And what we would like to do is to put down a community center and surround it with 1,000, ultimately, but 100 tiny homes. in a neighborhood.
So you are a neighborhood that is accountable to one another. We're using local resources. We're using the community to come and help and giving people an opportunity to heal and to become productive members of the community instead of members of the community who are just sucking the resources, the life out of us. You know, a lot of the folks that I've seen come through City with dwellings, some of them will have a family member or loved them somewhere in the country, and you've got to talk to them and pull out of who it is, and then call the sister and find out really the sister doesn't.
Okay. Think really bad thoughts about him. The sister's been looking for him for six months, and if we just can get this person back. The sister would be glad to take care of them. Absolutely.
And we find that every single day that we're open, our open hours and out on the street. And so, what we do is we're glad to get you, or you know, if we have the funding, if we can figure out the funding, which that comes from all private donors in our nonprofit, we can have the funding to get you to Utah to be with your sister. We also want to talk to the sister. We want to make sure not only are you going to make it, but that you have a place to land when you get there. Because I can't give you resources in Utah.
Now in your community across North Carolina You can make a difference. You can find the organizations that are working with the homeless. You can donate your time, your money. Your small group can be praying. You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com.
This is This is Kingdom Pursuits, and this is Bill Nixon filling in for Robbie Gilmore. And we've got some wonderful guests on the show, and we're talking about the absolute need for more housing in the United States. And we're talking about folks that are just one problem away from losing everything that they have and becoming homeless. And we're talking about All those people that had that one problem happened to them recently and are already homeless. And I'm saying that maybe as Christians and Christ-like fellowships, that we've got a responsibility to be proactive and figure out what we're going to do to help our neighbors that are going through extremely difficult times around us.
One person may be willing and able to do a whole lot more than others, but everybody can do something. At the very least, we can be praying for the people that are around us that are going through difficult times. A small step above that is We can have a lunch. At a table in a public place, and let somebody know that we'll be praying for them, and we're sorry there's situations going on. And if we're sharp, we'll have a list of resources in our particular community that would be helpful for somebody.
And there's this really weird word called evangelism.
Now, it's not something that's in vogue right now, and there's some folks that don't know what the word means, and there's some people, including a few ministers I know, that run from that scary word. But we've got a responsibility to know why we've got a secure faith where we're going to end up and to share that good news with other people. And I don't think that anywhere in the New Testament it says that you aren't supposed to share that good news with people that are having a really rough time and their life's a whole lot. more difficult than ours. We're supposed to look around and see the people that God put in our path, that we've got a responsibility.
to help and assist. Yeah, I love the idea that Carter at New Story United Methodist Church is trying to encourage his neighbors around his church and his congregation to make a difference in this world. Carter, would you like to share a little bit more about what you're involved in. Yeah, I think I agree with your statement that we should share faith with the people. It's interesting, one of the things we always say at News Story in that vein is what St.
Francis of Assisi said when he said, if you're walking to preach, but you're walking is not preaching, there's no point in walking to preach. And so we really try to live into this idea. He also says, share the gospel at all times, and if necessary, use your words. As the saying goes, there are five gospels: there's Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the life of a believer. And so I always encourage my congregation.
To realize that everything that they do, especially how they handle people who are not as well off as them, people on the street, the people we deal with on Wednesday night, which as Lee knows can be wonderful or sometimes can be a little bit challenging to handle, all of that informs them about Christ and who Christ is and how Christ can change our lives. and how Christ can sort of radiate off of us. And so we spend a lot of time when we train our volunteers and we talk to our congregation about how important it is how we treat people. On Wednesday nights, and just on average, especially the people we deal with off the street. And that's what has led us to this idea of we really think we need to handle the idea of housing.
and to integrate that into our ministry because we see it as an extension. Yeah. Not just Hey, we're doing this because we want to do it, but this is what Christ has called us to do. And so we can either talk about the thing. that Christ has called to do or we can you know the pedal to the metal and get it done.
Um but that's a challenge, you know, Phil. I mean I just does lean those I It's just so difficult sometimes. times to actually do the things that they Christ is called us the Duke is a thing. expensive. You've got to work with city.
Planning to do that, you know, you've got to do all. of this stuff. To do the things Christ has called. No. Yeah.
That's what we do. Christians, you know, we follow Christ, we do what he says. We believe this is part of what he's challenged us to do is to take care of the homeless.
Well, there's some really inexpensive things that a lot of us can do. We can, when we're driving down the road, have four or five care packages and gallon-sized bags in our back seat that have a bottle of water and a couple snacks and a resource list of the places that somebody can go to get help. In our county, there's a place you can go to get lunch every day of the year. There's a food bank that, if you know where to go, there's a place to get groceries all over the county at the right time, here, there, and the other. There are places to get mental health assistance.
There are probably 20 different organizations that work. That you can put on a sheet of paper and say you can call these places. Most homeless have a phone, those that don't have access to a phone. To have that resource list there. And when you drive up, instead of handing somebody some money, if you want to go up and above the call of duty, you can stop by one of the fast food chains in town and you can get some five or ten dollar gift certificates and you can stick one of those in the gallon bags.
If you belong to a church like New Story United Methodist Church, you could put the church on the bottom of the sheet with a phone number and an address. That's not expensive. You can do that. Anybody can do that out of their budget. You, I hope, are part of a Christian group: a Bible study, a small men's group, a civic club.
Invite somebody from those different organizations to come and talk to your small group. Learn about what's going on in your community. You may find a place in one of those organizations where your heart would just explode to be able to get in and help. What are you doing this week to be Christ-like in your community? What are you doing this week to make a difference around the people that you love?
Have your children on a regular basis seen you? Do these type things. You know, I hate to say it. It just amazes me how few young people there are out there doing the volunteer work that I grew up doing. I wonder if that's because they're not seeing their big brothers, their parents, their uncles, the leadership of the church, that the people that they respect aren't taking them out to do these things that really should be on our to-do list.
Carter, are there any things in your congregation that you're doing other than the housing to open people's eyes to the... ways to assist people. Oh, yeah, Phil. On Wednesday nights, we have a great program that's several hours long where we let people come in and we'll let them in early. When it's really cold and it's really hot, you know, we let them in early.
sort of as a day shelter, as it were, and then we have a meal at five o'clock. And we have a voluntary worship service because like you said, you know, sharing the faith and worshiping and praying together and confessing together. That's such an important part of our faith. And we find that a lot of the people who are on the street are, you know, confessing Christians. Capability.
They love Jesus, they're just going through a hard time. And so we gather together if they want to. They don't always do it, or they don't always come in, but they can if they want. And then we have. a clothing closet, a food pantry run by a series of unbelievable volunteers.
And then recently those volunteers noticed that they kept having women ask for feminine. and hygiene supplies, so we've developed a ministry called New Story Women's Outreach. and it's focused solely on women and women's hygiene.
So They have a lot of women's products that they hand out each week. We just got a good bit of money to help with that. We've got a budding partnership with Johnson and Johnson on that. And we want to push that into more clinical stuff with a couple of OBGYNs that we know to come in and do some deeper work with women on the street because it's one of those little niche uh areas that a lot of people don't focus on. And so, you know, we can do it, and that means we're not duplicating.
Yeah. or maybe done at city. Mm-hmm.
someplace else like that. And to speak to your point, we actually and have a small group of young people, people in their 20s. who have been showing up over the past uh probably two months and have just given themselves to this ministry because they see it as something that is important to their faith in their understanding of God.
So you know, if we did our job, ninety percent of people would not be finding their significant other online, paying forty or so dollars a month to get hooked up. They would be meeting people Making a difference to their community, helping folks. Lee, what were you going to say?
Well, I think that opportunities are so important to give, and so that's things nonprofits are trying to do, like our nonprofit, to give an opportunity for you to come and see. We love to come speak to your Sunday school class, but what we really want you to do is come and see. Because when you meet people face to face and you see Jesus's face shining back at you, that's going to cause transformation.
Well, stick with us, we've got a few minutes after this break. You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. This is Bill Nixon filling in for Robbie Dillmore on Kingdom Pursuits. I would like to. Most of you belong to a really wonderful, loving, and caring church.
I would think that a lot of you have somebody in the church that's responsible for sending a check to a number of different local ministries in your town. That person would be a great one to bump into on Sunday and say, look, tell me about some of the organizations our congregation supports that works with the homeless. And then pick up the phone and call that organization and say, our church supports you. I want to know a lot more about what you do. I would encourage you to get in the car and go down and take a tour of that particular organization.
And when you're there, say, You know, I was thinking of putting together a care package for folks that are homeless, and I want to put a list of all the resources that are available in town. Do you already have one? Can you give me four or five places that I should consider putting on the list? I would encourage you then, after you put your list together, once a month, look at one of the people that you put on that list, one of those organizations, and go take a tour of that organization and see what it does. I would encourage you to get a group of people in your church that are willing to be involved in the different ministries that your church writes a check to on a regular basis.
If your church doesn't write a regular check, I would encourage you to give a little prayerful consideration and try to see if maybe a group of you can make a difference in your community with one of the organizations already set up doing a good job. We are supposed to be active. Love is an active word. We are supposed to, as Christians, be sweating. And putting muscle in and exercising our faith to doing things.
And we should take the young people, our kids, our neighbors, we should take folks along with us to see what it's like to make a difference in the lives of others. There are opportunities for us to make a difference in the lives of others. Lee, what are some of the things that City with Dwellings does? You help probably 30 people a day between you and Krista. What are some of the things that City with Dwelling does?
Yeah, so we believe in community.
So when we open our doors for open hours, you don't have to have an ID, you don't have to sign a paper, you don't have to make an appointment. We just want you to come in and tell us what's going on. Let's just try to have as much trust as we can over a cup of coffee. We see about 65 people average a day, and some people just need a place to come and sit in the cool for a couple of hours, have a cup of coffee. But most people that we see, most of our neighbors, are out.
Actively asking, how can I become stable? How can I have a home like you have? How can I have a job like you have? I don't know how to get there. I've lost it all, and I just don't know how to get it.
I've never had it, don't know how to get it, or don't know how to get it back. And so we see the, you know, every person is a bit different, but we do see some common threads. One is you need to have people surrounding you that are giving you reinforcement. If all of your tribe and all of your community is... Indulging in destructive behavior, that's where you're going to go.
So, surround yourself with people.
Now, that's a little dicey because sometimes when you walk into a community that's got healthy folks in there, you get looked at funny. No one will speak to you.
So, you need places that are low barrier. Churches should be those places. Let me. Do. Folks can come into City with Dwellings Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 2 o'clock to 4 o'clock.
They have a chance to get on phones, they have a chance to get on the internet, they have a chance to get mail, have a chance to get some coffee, and they have a chance to talk to your staff to try and accomplish all those things that you were discussing.
So it's a place that if you're homeless, you know that you can go and be listened to. Whether there are resources to fix the problem you got, you at least know that there are people there that are willing to help you work out what the answer to your particular problem is. Yes, with a positive bent. We are not punitive because that doesn't work. And we are not judging because that doesn't work.
So walking alongside, having people feel empowered to, everybody is really already empowered, but some people just don't recognize it, that what they can do. And one of the biggest concerns. Is right now there's almost no affordable housing. Luck and God have to come together at exactly the right moment for one of a thousand people to slide into one of those opportunities to get something because most people don't make anywhere near enough to afford the most basic, inexpensive opportunities. That's very true.
And if you're living on Social Security income that you have worked your whole life for and don't have significant other investments, you're not going to be able to afford a place that you're comfortable living in my county. And so what do you do? And if the place that you're living was a little bit less than you really really were hoping for or maybe you feel a little m Not as comfortable as you were hoping to feel in your retirement years. It's even worse if your rent doubles. And you're out.
There was one sermon that Paul gave to a church because they spent so much time helping all the people that really didn't need help and they overlooked the people in the congregation that really did need help. And I'm going to ask you to look around your community and see if there's some people that you can make a difference for in your community. Because I got to say, if we're not making a difference, it's going to get worse. There's going to be less resources. They need to come from us.
So, pray for the homeless in your community. Pray for a way for you to make a difference in the lives of those that you come in contact with. And open your eyes. Notice the people. Mm-hmm.
