Have a Little Faith: A True Story

toe in the water. I helped Henry purchase a blue tarp for his ceiling, which stretched over the leaking section, so at least the sanctuary would not be flooded. Fixing the roof was a much bigger job, maybe eighty thousand dollars, according to a contractor.

“Whoo,” Henry had gushed, when we heard the estimate. Eighty thousand dollars was more than his church had seen in years. I felt badly for him. But that would have to come from some more committed source. A tarp-a toe in the water-was enough from me.

I got out of the car and a freezing wind smacked my cheeks. With the homeless program operating, the side street was populated with men bundled against the cold. A couple of them smoked. I noticed a slight man holding a child, but as I stepped closer I realized that, under the ski cap, it was a woman. I held the door open and she passed in front of me, the child on her shoulder.

Inside, I heard loud grinding hums, like small engines, then a screaming voice. I turned into the catwalk that overlooked the gym. The floor was covered in fold-out tables, and there were maybe eighty homeless men and women sitting around them. They wore old coats and hooded sweatshirts. A few had parkas; one wore a Detroit Lions jacket.

In the middle of the floor, Henry, in a blue sweatshirt and a heavy coat, moved between the tables, shifting his weight from one foot to the next.

“I am somebody!” he yelled.

“I am somebody!” the crowd repeated.

“I am somebody,” he yelled again.

“I am somebody,” they repeated in kind.

“Because God loves me!”

“Because God loves me!”

A few people clapped. Henry exhaled and nodded. One by one, many of the homeless stood up, came into a circle, and held hands. A prayer was recited.

Then, as if on cue, the circle broke and a line formed, leading to the kitchen and something hot to eat.

I tugged on my coat. It felt unusually cold.

“Evenin’, Mister Mitch.”

I looked over and saw Cass, the one-legged church elder, sitting on the catwalk, holding a clipboard. The way he greeted me with that lilt in his voice-“Evenin’, Mister Mitch”-I half-expected him to tip his cap. I had learned that he’d lost the leg a few years ago, to complications from diabetes and heart surgery. Still, he was always so upbeat.

Hi, Cass.

“Pastor’s down there.”

Henry looked up, gave a small wave. Cass watched me wave back.

“When you gonna hear my story, Mister Mitch?”

You’ve got a story, too?

“I got a story you need to hear.”

Sounds like it could take a few days.

He laughed. “Naw, naw. But you oughta hear it. It’s important.”

All right, Cass. We’ll figure something out.

That seemed to appease him and, thankfully, he dropped the subject. I shivered and pulled my coat tighter.

It’s really cold in here, I said.

“They turned off the heat.”

Who?

“Gas company.”

Why?

“Why else? Didn’t pay the bill, I suppose.”

The humming noise was overwhelming. We were shouting just to be heard.

What is that? I asked.

“Blowers.”

He pointed to several machines that looked like yellow windsocks, pushing warmed air toward the homeless, who waited in line for chili and corn bread.

They really turned your heat off? I said.

“Ye-up.”

But winter’s coming.

“That’s true,” Cass said, looking down at the crowd. “Be a lot more people in here soon.”

Thirty minutes later, up in his office, Henry and I sat huddled by a space heater. Someone came in and offered us a paper plate with corn bread.

What happened? I asked.

Henry sighed. “Turns out we owe thirty-seven thousand dollars to the gas company.”

What?

“I knew we were running behind, but it was small amounts. We always managed to pay something. Then it got cold so quick this fall, and we started heating the sanctuary for services and Bible study. We didn’t realize that the hole in the roof-”

Was sucking the heat up?

“Up and out. We just kept heating it more-”

And it kept disappearing out the roof.

“Disappearing.” He nodded. “That’s the word.”

What do you do now?

“Well, we got blowers. At first, they shut off our electricity, too. But I called and begged them to leave us something.”

I couldn’t believe it. A church in the cold, in America, in the twenty-first century.

How do you explain that with your faith? I said.

“I ask Jesus that a lot,” Henry said. “I say, ‘Jesus, is there something going on with us?” Is it like the book of Deuteronomy, the twenty-eighth chapter, “You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country’ for living in disobedience?”

And what does Jesus answer you?

“I’m still praying. I say, ‘God, we need to see you.’”

He sighed.

“That’s why that tarp you helped with was so important, Mitch. Our people needed a glimmer of hope. Last week it rained and water gushed in the sanctuary; this week it rained, and it didn’t. To them, that’s a sign.”

I squirmed. I didn’t want to be part of a sign. Not in a church. It was just a tarp. A sheet of blue plastic.

Can I ask you something? I said.

“Sure.”

When you were selling drugs, how much money did you have?

He rubbed a hand on the back of his neck. “Man. Do you know, in one stretch, over a year and a half, I brought in about a half a million dollars?”

And now your gas gets shut off?

“Yeah,” he said, softly. “Now the gas gets shut off.”

I didn’t ask if he missed those days. Looking back, it was cruel enough to have asked the first question.

Later, when the plates had been cleared and the tables folded, Cass called names off the clipboard-“ Everett!…DeMarcus!”-and one by one, the homeless men stepped up and took a thin vinyl mattress and a single wool blanket. Side by side, a few feet from one another, they set up for the night. Some carried plastic trash bags with their possessions; others had only the clothes they were wearing. It was bone-cold, and Cass’s voice echoed