But so much has happened since then – it’s like “everything hitting at once” – I need to update you:

• We were shocked to learn that lovable Randy Workman, a longtime friend of Prodigal’s Home, had taken his own life. He had spent 14 years on the streets, but for the last 6 years Randy had been clean and sober, living indoors, and working a steady job. He drove the bus for us many times, even the week before he died. But he was deeply troubled, in ways we never knew, and we lost him.

We had a memorial service for Randy last week, and I saw what it really means to be a community. At the memorial, I saw a couple who had been homeless, part of our Prodigal’s “congregation” for a long time, but now living indoors and doing well. As we talked, I learned that they had been trying for some time to help another homeless friend – a paranoid guy who hates the indoors – urging him to move indoors with them, welcoming him to live in their backyard … simply striving to love him however he was willing to be loved.

I was in awe of how those with so little are so willing to give it away to help others on the journey. But I was also struck by the fact that they were replicating what they had experienced themselves at Prodigal’s Home! Multiplying our own ministry….

• Just yesterday we got some more difficult news. A dear friend and supporter of Prodigal’s Home, Bob Parsons, died from cancer. Bob and his wife Diane first came to Prodigal’s Home back when we were at El Gran Taco Mexican Grill, and they worked side-by-side with us until Bob got his diagnosis and had to enter chemo. I spoke to Bob just a few days before his death – and what did he want to talk about? He wanted to know everything going on in the lives of the people at Prodigal’s Home.

To the very end, Bob was telling everybody he could about the needs of the homeless and poor, and the work of Prodigal’s Home. Even in death, his final wish for those mourning his loss was that they would support the ministry he had come to love so much. I was amazed that Diane made a very strong plea, in her own announcement of Bob’s passing, for contributions toward our purchase of a “home for the homeless” in Sunnyslope. I will miss you greatly Bob Parsons.

• Finally, on the same day Bob died, we got very bad news from CrossRoads UMC, the church where we’ve been ministering each weekend for 20 months. Their latest requirements will make it far too expensive for us to keep serving at their location. So we announced to our people today that next week (Saturday, October 2) will be our last day there.

We don’t know where we’ll be after that, but I can tell you absolutely: we will be somewhere. We may be at a local church in the Sunnyslope area … we may be back at the park where we first started serving 4-1/2 years ago. These details are not important. We know we will will be delivered by God, and we will be faithful in this.

In all of this, we continue to ask for financial support, to help buy the house we’ll be serving from during the week.

We still need an additional $25,000 to make possible without going into serious debt. I pray you would personally see the faithfulness of God to our ministry, and recognize that we are committed, no matter what, to serving the homeless and poor in Sunnyslope … that you would be moved to help us, so we can keep serving Gray Haired Scotty and so many others … alongside deeply committed servants like the late Bob Parsons. Your generous online donation right now will help to establish a place where being a community means more than polite surface-level dialogue. A place where the homeless and poor can know that we – and they – live in the presence of a generous Lord.

May you come to know the joy of a community of faith like Prodigal’s Home and may you know we are grateful for all you do for us.

Grace & Peace,

Mike