A Cup of Cold Water

“She has no family or friends, and has alienated her neighbors,” the chaplain said on the phone.

In 2020, a colleague who served as a chaplain at one of the Baptist Health System hospitals called me about a woman who was about to be discharged after cancer surgery. A social worker had arranged some of her care at home, but she was still weak, had no one nearby to call for help, and had no way to get to her appointments.

I got the call because her home was near our ministry network, and Baptist Temple had deacons who had completed fifty hours of Stephen Minister training. They had learned to listen, pray, and read Scripture with people going through a hard time. She was assigned a Stephen Minister, and a team from the church helped with whatever needed doing. They drove her to appointments, cleared her yard, and made repairs around the house. Sometimes they scrubbed her floors.

Six years later, we were still helping Sheila. And now, her cancer had returned. She doesn’t come to church and although she appreciates the help that she is dependent upon, she has come to believe that God hated her. She could point to plenty in her life that made her think so. She doesn’t connect the help she receives with God’s love.

One day, a deacon took her to Cracker Barrel after a medical appointment. “Why does God hate me?” she asked. The deacon told her that God loved her and had sent people to help but she was unconvinced. No argument could soothe her broken spirit. 

Then came an unexpected change. A man standing near them in line had heard the exchange. The deacon described him to me as a big, scary-looking dude. “I’m paying for your breakfast today,” he said.

This broke through her defenses. A stranger picked up the check, and it got through to her. Maybe she was not a lost cause, a bottomless pit of need.

When the deacon told me the story, I thought of Jesus’ words about how a cup of cold water given in his name carries a reward (Matt. 10:42). I thought, too, of what he said about caring for the least of his brothers and sisters. What we do for them; we do for him (Matt. 25:40).

There are many hurting people that God has brought to us. People who struggle with mental illness, addictions, a troubled past, and poor choices. They are social lepers, unwanted in many places. What a privilege that God has entrusted them to us.

Full Circle: A Place to Belong and a People to Serve

A man who prayed with people in downtown San Antonio told Ash Castillo that he did not look like he belonged on the streets. Ash was angry. “Nobody belongs out here,” he told him. “Nobody belongs in this. We’re not meant for this.”

The man, whom Ash knows as Samson, agreed. He handed Ash a flyer with a phone number for a ministry that could give him a place to live. Ash turned him down. “Even though that was the answer I needed, I fought it that whole day,” he recalled.

By then, he had spent about three years caught in homelessness, addiction, and failing health. He had once measured his life by the things he had accomplished. He had finished college, begun a career, and started a family. Then he lost his job and a bitter divorce followed. The collapse came faster than he could manage.

He had survived physical and sexual abuse as a child. He thought he had put those experiences behind him. Losing the life he had built brought him back to things he had never resolved. “I felt like it was like everything I didn’t deal with actually came kind of crushing on me in that moment,” he said.

“I didn’t become homeless because I was on drugs,” he said. The drugs came after he was on the streets. He wanted to numb himself to his circumstances. Sometimes he used them to suppress hunger when he had gone days without food.

For about four months, he stayed in an area called Central Plaza. Samson was there offering prayer. Ash began looking for him. “Just please pray for me,” he would ask.

On the day Samson gave him the flyer, one thing after another went wrong. Looking back, Ash counts those disappointments as blessings. They helped him make the call.

He told the man who answered that he needed somewhere to go. He had nothing. He did not know whether the program cost money. The man, John, explained that Ministry House of Restoration was a sober living home. It was faith-based, strict, and structured. If Ash was ready to commit, John could pick him up in twelve minutes.

“I went in thinking that I need somewhere to sleep, I need something to eat, and I ended up uncovering a lot more needs that I had,” Ash said. “I needed a family, I needed . . . stability. I needed healing. I needed a firm hand. I needed someone to be real with me.”

Church had not felt like a refuge to him. He associated his childhood church experience with abuse. As he grew older, he stopped praying and became defensive around expressions of Christian faith.

During his first week at Ministry House, a pastor called him into his office. Ash told him about his addiction and health problems. He had been diagnosed with HIV as a teenager and required medication. He wanted the pastor to know what accepting him would involve. Ash remembers the pastor's answer: “So what?”

He felt accepted. Much of his experience with other people had involved an exchange. Kindness usually came with an expectation. Here, he began learning how to live among people who would tell him what he needed to hear.

Nine months into the program, Ash is helping with administrative work and the daily life of the home. The day begins at 4:30 a.m. There are meals to prepare and chores to complete. Bible study, worship, ministry training, and peer support are part of the routine. So are learning to maintain personal hygiene, settle disagreements, and live within a structure.

“I live in the home. I’m in the program,” he said. “I don’t just clock out at five o’clock. I’m just a son of the house,” he said.

Ash was recently on the HPCAN campus for a three-day Ministry House of Restoration discipleship gathering. People came from affiliated ministries across the country for worship, prayer, fellowship, and testimonies. Some had been part of the ministry for more than twenty years. For newcomers, their presence offered a view of what life could become.

When he learned about HPCAN’s community meal, he wanted people from his ministry to volunteer. The meal could provide an occasion to talk. Someone looking for a place to live could learn about the men’s and women’s homes.

He still talks with Samson, who continues praying with people downtown. Now Samson calls Ash when someone needs the ministry. Ash now works alongside John, the man who picked him up and took him to the shelter. “I need to be around the people that have shared the same pain that I’ve shared,” he said.

He calls it a full circle moment. Some of those people sleep where he once slept. When he speaks with them, he begins there. “The sidewalk you slept on, I used to sleep there.”

The Most Important Question

Guest blog – Vernon Liverett

I recently had the opportunity to do intake at the food pantry. Before shopping, people sit down with a volunteer to complete or update a food bank form. Ours is a client-choice pantry, where people choose groceries their families can use. It is the type the San Antonio Food Bank recommends.

To me, the most important question comes after the form is completed: “How can I pray for you today?” That question opens a conversation beyond the paperwork and gives us an opportunity to bring the person’s concerns to our heavenly Father.

This is when people may share a fear or concern they have been carrying. I don’t regularly get to do this but when I do it often is very emotional. Recently, a man told me that his mother and his partner had both died within the last three months. He had also been evicted and had to live under a bridge for several days before he could find a place to live. He was overwhelmed by all that had happened. Another young man shared that he had a young son with Down Syndrome. He was unemployed and looking for a job. A woman shared that she was struggling to care for her mother who has dementia.

These conversations remind me how much it matters to listen, show compassion, and care about the person sitting across from us. This question allows us to really connect with them.

Our care does not depend on whether someone attends church, but when they know that we truly care about them, they are much more receptive to an invitation to any of the activities on our campus. This might include ceramics, the Tuesday meal, Divine Women or just coming to worship or Bible study. To me this is why I believe the question, “How can I pray for you?” is the most important thing we ask. It’s not just asked at the food pantry, but also at the thrift store, at the Saturday food distribution, and the Tuesday night meal.