Without a Place to Call Home

As our church prepares itself for the 500 guests sure to arrive for the 22^nd Annual Blues Jam and Chili Cook Off, homelessness has been on my mind a lot.  All the proceeds of this awesome event go to the work of the Haven of Rest in Battle Creek.  They do stellar work with veterans, mothers, and others who have found themselves without a place to call home.  Their recovery programs are changing lives for not just one generation, but those to follow as children of addicts are also learning what it means to recover. 

I’m not sure if you have ever been homeless.  It’s not fun, intended, or easy.  When my marriage of ten years failed, I found myself in a $50 beater van with a single mattress in the back, a cooler for our groceries, some camping gear, and my two preschool age children.  It was not fun purchasing ice every day to keep their milk cold or cooking dinner over a campfire every night.  I never intended my small children to have to take their baths in a cold lake for three months as they begged me with tears in their eyes not to make them get in again.  And surely it wasn't easy tucking them both into the back of the van each night, zipping up their sleeping bags and shutting the back doors of the van one more time.  But it was necessary. 

In order for me to move forward in our life, I had choices to make.  And yes, they were difficult choices.  So out in the middle of a couple hundred acres of virgin woods and meadows, I drove our van and took stake for home.  I found a babysitter off the cork board at the local Laundromat and began my search for work.  I also began my search for a real home, without dirt floors and stars for ceilings.  There, on a familiar corner just down from our “new” home, was a schoolhouse. It was built 110 years earlier with sculpted cinder block and had since been painted white with a red roof and trim. It had round windows on both ends and a bell tower that stretched more than forty feet into the sky.  It was surrounded by a Christmas tree farm and had plenty of room for an art studio, a garden, and a play yard; three of my absolute requirements. The rest we could adapt to. 

I met with the owners and simply shared the truth: “I am in the midst of a divorce. My children and I are living in the woods in my van and I need a home before school starts. I have not worked out of the home for over five years now, but am a hard worker and will find a job yet this week.  I would really like to call this house our home, but in order to do that, I would need a land contract with a step up payment plan.  I could be successful in my responsibilities if I could purchase this schoolhouse on a land contract with my payments starting under a hundred dollars a month and then next year step up to $150 and by the third year $250 and eventually by the fourth year reach $375 per month.  If that is possible for you, I would love to tell my children we have a home.” 

I’m not sure what was longer, their silence or the distance their mouths fell open.  I was serious.  I think they knew that.  Finally they stated that they would have to talk about it and get back with me.  I had no phone so we agreed to meet again the next day at the house.  When we did, this was their response: “We are not sure why we are agreeing to this, but we believe we are supposed to.  So yes, we will sell you the house on a land contract under the conditions you have proposed.”  And a nearly ten year process of renovating and residency began.  I told the kids and they were ecstatic! “And we’ll have warm baths and cold water to drink from the sink, and a fridge to keep our milk in, and a toilet to use?? And a bedroom to sleep in??...Can we still camp out some nights under the stars and have bonfires with you, mom?”  Yes.  And yes.

There are a multitude of reasons people become homeless.  Cost of living compared to incomes is so out of balance right now, it is nearly impossible to keep your head above water if your wages are not well above minimum wage.  Then there are human factors, like divorce, alcoholism, physical and mental abuse, drug addiction, mental illness, disease, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other forms of brokenness.  The reality is, it can be any of us tucking our children into the back of a van each night… if we are even blessed to have a van.  So come out Saturday night, January 25^th, and join us as we listen to some blues and eat some chili. But more important than anything, as we raise both funds and awareness for those without a place to call home.

If you can’t make it and would like to support the Haven’s work, simply write a check to “MUMC” with “Haven” in the memo line and mail to 721 Old US 27 North, Marshall  MI, 49068.