Tag: homeless

Homeless man Under Pressure

A video shared by Mark Horvath:

(I) Keep coming up with love but it’s so slashed and torn
Why – why – why ?
Love love love love love
Insanity laughs under pressure we’re cracking
Can’t we give ourselves one more chance
Why can’t we give love that one more chance
Why can’t we give love give love give love give love give love give love give love give love give love
‘Cause love’s such an old fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
And love dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves

BTW – I’ll be speaking about this crazy love this coming Sunday at encounter in Waxahachie. Come join the discussion at 10:30 a.m. CST. If you can’t make it to Waxahachie Sunday morning you should be able to join in online – live.encounterthis.com

UPDATE: Mark tells me this man is not homeless. His name is Sky Soleil and he lives in Los Angeles. Mark wrote, “I think this is a cute video and it made me smile, but Sky should have been upfront about not really being homeless. being dishonest and using a gimmick to help a video get views sucks!” I agree.

UPDATE 2: This is from the description on YouTube:

This is a performance meant to entertain and inspire.

If you want to help…

http://www.squidoo.com/help-the-homel…

http://homelessness.change.org/nonpro…

As I said this is a performance. I don’t want there to be any doubts about my situation. I am a performer. I have a roof over my head and I have yet to start my own family. But this video isn’t about me. This is for the men, women and children on our streets who don’t have bright green puppets on their hands. The people who aren’t always as easy to see. This is for you.

http://invisiblepeople.tv/blog/

UPDATE 3: Change.org posted an interview with Sky Soleil, the actor in the video. A great interview – worth reading. Shows how a simple act can really spur a lot of people to action.

adopt a Jesus

Have you seen the new trailer for Brandt’s Russo’s documentary?

While I personally preferred the title “pastor’s parking only” (he joked about that title during the chat for our podcast), Brandt says the movie needed something a bit more serious and they’ve settled on a title, ‘”Adopt a Jesus” (which is an awesome idea and title in and of itself).

Brandt told me tonight (via facebook chat) that production is coming along great and he’s wrapping up a lot of the voice-over work this week. The movie is scheduled to be released in August of this year.

We can’t wait to see it!

Now if you’re expecting this movie to show up in your local theater – sorry – but that’s not very likely. Brandt and the other folks working on this movie are self-producing, self-distributing, and self-marketing this movie — so they can use all the help they can get to get this message out.

Hopefully after watching the trailer (and listening to Brandt’s story) you’re interest will be peaked and you’ll start getting word out about the movie on your blogs, twitter, facebook, myspace and elsewhere, and then you’ll join the facebook group, tell more friends about it and then see if you can organize a public screening in your area once the movie is out.

After watching the trailer and listening to Brandt’s story — what do you think?

Rest in Peace ScrapIron

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A couple years ago, we met ScrapIron on the street near the Austin Street Shelter. He was a joy to be around and always carried an harmonica or two with him and was always more than willing to share the music that rang through his soul.

I was lucky enough to get him playing his rendition of Amazing Grace on the harmonica on video (see below). Since our first meeting I’ve run into ScrapIron a couple different times either near Austin Street or where he was hanging out under the bridges around downtown Dallas – he was always high spirited and rarely complained about the hand he’d been dealt.

It was through a comment on that that original video (on YouTube) that I got word today that ScrapIron passed away yesterday.

Hal Samples, who’s had a lot more contact with ScrapIron recently, and even helped him see several dreams come true passed along the heads-up.

Hal wrote in December ::

He was really sick a couple of weeks ago and Keith took him to Baylor. They said that he had an infection in his lungs and gave him meds and released him within three hours. Three days later… he wasn’t able to breathe and was taken to Parkland. They did routine surgery to allow his lungs to drain and under the knife he lost his heart rate. Today he has brain damage and the hospital is looking to release him to a nursing home hospice situation.

Today Hall writes ::

Keith sent me the message this morning that Scrapiron passed yesterday. This is a sorry deal too. Ford was a great man… and a good friend…. a real artist and amazing soul. He has no family other than his brother… and there is no money for funeral set aside… it’s really shitty this whole deal has me angry…sad… fearful… and pissed… and grateful… all of it.
We want to have a memorial of some sort… I just need to get sorted.
Stay tuned…
We are making arrangements for a memorial to be had in SPACE (TBA) in hopes to raise the resources needed for a proper burial.

I agree with his sentiment. And it bothers me that there are thousands of people just like him who don’t get a chance to make an impact on someone else’s lives – only because we refuse to take the time to let them.

How many others are out there just like ScrapIron? Or just like John, or Marco and Cherese, or Mark?

How many stories are out there just waiting to be shared and listened to?

Watch more videos from Hal.

Slow to reject

…as Faenza likes to tell his staff, the more times a person has been in jail, been arrested or beaten up, the more welcome he will be at the center.

“We want this place to be very slow to reject anybody,” Faenza says. “You don’t have to be likable to deserve services. You can be aggravating and annoying and still deserve services….They are not going to act grateful. But you can’t lecture. You can’t coerce. You can’t shame people.”

This comes from a story about The Bridge – a homeless shelter in Dallas. I hope my home, my community group, my tribe, my communities of faith are the same way. I would hate to know a homeless shelter is more welcoming than the Body of Christ.

5/365


5/365
Originally uploaded by Jonathan D. Blundell.

its awfully cold today in North Texas. maybe not as cold as other places, but following a weekend of 80 degrees, 30 degrees feels super cold.

we’re lucky. even in my garage its not that cold. i had a nice hot shower and settled down with a cold beer before remembering i needed to take this photo. then i put on a nice warm beanie and my extra warm new coat and took this photo. i even have some nice warm gloves in my pocket that i could have put on.

yet tonight around north texas and elsewhere who knows how many men, women and children are trying to stay warm outside.

this weekend my friends Josh and Jeff spent 29 hours on the street in waco, living as though they were homeless. Josh said he realized fairly quickly that it was a lot harder than he imagined. just 29 hours. yet folks do it 24/7.

thanks to folks like invisiblepeople.tv who help remind us that these are real people with real stories. i hope to tell Josh and Jeff’s story soon on the podcast and hopefully Mark (from
invisiblepeople.tv) as well.

until then, chew on this and then check out the website ::

On the street I saw a small girl cold and shivering in a thin dress, with little hope of a decent meal. I became angry and said to God; “Why did you permit this? Why don’t you do something about it?” For a while God said nothing. That night he replied, quite suddenly:

“I certainly did something about it. I made you.”

invisiblepeople.tv

also – read my first night homeless