A friend recently asked me about our “success rate” at Gateway Rescue Mission. I know what she meant. She was asking what percentage of our program residents remain clean and sober after they graduate. Still, I sometimes wonder about God’s definition of success.

    Each week, our outreach team at Gateway Rescue Mission visits the homeless encampments in our area. This week, we heard the sad news that “Casper overdosed last night.” Casper reportedly was a loner who hung out along the Highway 80 corridor in Jackson. The guys living at “Tent City”, as we call it, said Casper died of a fentanyl overdose.

    We then visited another homeless camp called “The Slab” and heard Casper’s full story. Casper was living on the streets with stage 4 cancer. He was simply tired of hurting and walked to the “Slab”, telling the folks there he didn’t want to die alone. Here’s where the story takes an unusual turn.

    A Slab resident named Michael enrolled in our New Life Program a few years ago. I felt bad for Michael and wondered if we might encourage him to give our program another try, so he could become “successful”, as I tend to view success. On this morning, we took Waffle House meals to the folks at Tent City and the Slab. Michael was thankful for his eggs and grits andexplained to us in more detail about Casper’s final night on this earth.

    “He didn’t want to die alone, and he was hurting real bad from stage 4 cancer. He came over to our camp, so we prayed for him and with him,” recalled Michael. “Do you think Casper knew Jesus”? I asked Michael. “Oh yes, he left this world on his knees in prayer.”

    I chatted with Michael for several minutes after that. He asked for some ibuprofen and Benadryl to share with Pop, who suffers from back pain and has a tent at the Slab. In Michael’s eyes and voice, I sensed real concern for his fellow sojourners at this homeless camp that most of the world never notices.

    We pray before heading out to the camps and ask God to open our eyes to see what He sees. In that moment of talking with Michael, I changed my whole concept of the situation. Rather than seeing Michael as unsuccessful, it was like God allowed me to see Michael as someone who ministered the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ to a fellow soul on his last night in this world.

   Just maybe, Michael learned something during his time in our New Life Program about the mercy of God. Just maybe, the Ancient of Days knew before the foundation of time that Casper would need a friend at the end and tapped Michael to be that friend right here in Jackson, Mississippi. 

    God is a mystery, and His ways are not our ways. We will continue to build relationships with people in the homeless camps. I hope and pray that through those relationships, the Holy Spirit will plant a seed that leads to someone leaving the camps and embarking on a new and better life. I cannot believe that God’s best for someone is living amid squalor in a homeless camp.

    Still, we are not promised rainbows and fairytales in this life. God is fully willing and capable of showing up in those dark places where we think He has been forgotten, or better yet, where we think He has forgotten us. God always has His remnant of people who call on His name. On that Great Day, tongues from every tribe, nation, homeless shelter, crack house, prison, and homeless will gather around the throne and praise the name of Jesus, as our Lord looks down on a picture of perfect success.