“What makes me wanna roam when I got so much love at home” lyrics from song “What Makes a Man Wander” sung by Waylon Jennings

Today we had the privilege of serving 32 people.

• We met up with our new friend (TJ) and gave him jeans, shirts, socks, underwear, snacks and our packet of $10 bill/$10 Dunkin Donuts card/prayer card.  He was questioning if we were affiliated with a church and when we told him no that we were carrying on the good work of our friends Jim and Terry Orcutt, he still had a puzzled look on his face.  He was going on a job interview this morning and is hoping and praying he can get some work.  Staying in the shelter is not good for his mental well-being so he is still sleeping outside.  When it rained one night he got shelter under a store front canopy but triggered the store alarm when he rolled over in his sleep and had to move.  We told him we would keep praying for him.

• We ran into our regular friends who informed us of two recent deaths of friends who we would occasionally see in wheelchairs.  It’s sad when they tell us this news but to them it’s just another day in the city.

• When talking to our friend who lost his wife and is so broken and lost that he can’t even pick his eyes up off the ground, he tells us he feels so hopeless and not worthy of anything good in his life.  We tell him we love him and continue to pray for him and try to encourage him to seek treatment in honor of Carrie.  His state of mind and body, feeling hopeless and not worthy is common among our friends.  Their many failed attempts to turn their lives around keeps them in a constant state of guilt and remorse.  We try to encourage them to keep trying to get into treatment and tell them we still pray for them.

• We gave out a lot of tee shirts, socks and underwear.  One of our friends (Don) didn’t want a white shirt because it gets so dirty.  He wanted dark colors.  We told him we only had white and he took it reluctantly.  We told his friend (Ray) that he was in charge of making sure (Don) kept his shirt clean and we all laughed.

At our last stop we ran into our friend (Lee) who said she just got out the hospital after being treated for another condition related to her lifestyle but denied it had anything to do with it.  Our friend, Peg, helped her secure housing, a little apartment two towns over, but because it was that far away and she was not able to see her street family regularly along with not being able to adjust to normal living conditions, she had to give up her apartment and is back on the street.  It’s a vicious cycle that is common for some of our friends.  We keep praying for the transition to come from within, not external.

“I have become a stranger to my brothers, and an alien to my mother’s children” Psalm 69:8.

Please Note:   We have changed our location for donations for On the Street Ministry from Holy Cross Retreat House to My Brother’s Keeper.  We currently have a box in the main stairway on the 1^st floor of MBK.  If you have recurring orders through Amazon or any other retail website, please change the delivery address to:

On the Street Ministry

c/o Shaun Teed

67 Turner Road

Scituate, MA 02066

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Thank you to all the people who support our ministry.  We are also grateful for the support of My Brother’s Keeper for allowing us to keep a donation box there.

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God Bless,

Kathy Flaherty

Shaun Teed and Tito

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