I went out early this Thanksgiving, out to the streets to look for our friends who are homeless. I knew that Willie (68 yrs old, disabled) spends most of his nights hunkered down in a clump of woods near the University. Considering the minus-degree wind chills that morning, I had a special concern for Willie’s condition, so I checked on him first thing.

I found Willie in his bedroll, just poking his head out from under a pile of blankets. It took him a few seconds to catch his breath as he raised his head up and against the biting wind. Willie quickly ducked back under the covers to grab his shoes. He sleeps with his shoes off so his feet don’t freeze while he’s sleeping, something every camper should know.

I reached out to help Willie as he struggled to stand in his frozen shoes. He has his own ‘system’ of getting himself out of his bedroll, so I stepped back and let him flail his arms about. He kicked at his blankets and I noticed he didn’t kick his ‘pee-jug' – putting it ‘pee-lightly’. A pee-jug isn’t something we need to talk about. Anyone who sleeps out in the cold knows what a pee-jug is. When you’re all toasty in your bedroll and you have to go and you already have your shoes off, you can’t take time to put on all the rags you’d need to keep warm just to go … So, hence, the ‘pee jug.’

As Willie lumbered out and about his bedroll, I glance around his jungle camp. I hesitate to use the word ‘camp’ because camping here would be illegal. It’s more like Willie’s jungle ‘home’ – fair enough?

(Yeah, fair enough! This is the area where a handful of us friends had been quietly meeting for almost ten years. This is the abandoned area down along the rails that was recently fenced, chained and padlocked to keep folks like me from parking anywhere in the area so I can minister to folks like Willie. I’ll have to park in the street nearby and walk a few blocks to get to Willie’s jungle home from now on. And with every step I take to get there, I’ll think about next time parking right in front of the local sub-sandwich shop in town, and then inviting my friends to join me there for fellowship! Yeah, probably not!)

As I looked around Willie's jungle home, I noticed that the fire pit was cold.

The fire pit is constructed of broken cement and rocks and scrap iron scavenged from the immediate area. The pit is surrounded by a stump and a couple of chairs creating an arrangement that can be quickly – albeit, not easily – moved according to prevailing winds. The entire pit sits in a small clearing that serves as ‘great room’ and kitchen for when family stops by to visit. A rack from an old refrigerator serves as cooking grate. A piece of junk steel holds a half-dozen medium-sized rocks. As the fire burns, it heats the steel which heats the rocks. The rocks get just hot enough so you can still grab them with a gloved hand. Sitting around the fire in the cold, you can stick a few of these hot rocks in your jacket to bring the heat of the fire closer to your core!

¶ 12:01 PM