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.”