[box type=”info” style=”rounded”]This is second post that describes how Mo and I usually spend our Sundays together (here’s the first installment). The time that we hang on the last day of the weekend is something that I look forward to and thought it would be fun to give you a quick glimpse of what it’s like. Enjoy and like Mo always says, “Be nice!”. [/box]

The Church Service Seating Assignments

There’s a set seating chart during church, well at least for Mo there is. I tend to float around a little bit until I end up sitting down next to someone I know. Mo sits in the same place every Sunday and it’s pretty much become his spot. It’s near the back of the church at the end of the very last row of pews.

This specific location has become his regular seat for two main reasons: 1. because there’s an outlet right there and 2. it’s near the back door in case he needs to cool off and go for a walk (or a smoke). Mo needs to sit next to an outlet so he can plug in and charge the ankle monitor he’s been wearing the past four years he’s been or parole. This might sound funny but I’m totally used to finding an outlet for him no matter where we go (on the train, at my apartment, at Bible study, etc.).

Socializing and Finding Food

After the service is over that’s when the real socializing begins. At this point Mo’s been going to church with me for over six months so there’s not very many people who don’t know how he is. All different types of people like chatting with Mo and they all seem really interested in his story.

At this point Mo usually somehow sneaks into one of the classes/meetings that are going on between services and grabs some food. It doesn’t matter what they have, he’s more than happy to take it off their hands. I’ve seen everything from sandwiches to pies to doughnuts and fruit — if there’s something they’re willing to give up, Mo will eat it.

Mo’s Five Pound Burrito Bowl

Usually after 30-45 minutes we leave the church, which means the next stop is lunch. More times than not we head straight for a nearby Chipotle that’s seemed to become our food of choice. I always order first because Mo likes to take his time and really push the employees to turn his order into a masterpiece. My order is a fairly traditional burrito bowl that for me is a pretty good-sized meal. Mo on the other hand turns the traditional burrito bowl into what feels like a five pound bowl of Mexican awesomeness.

I can almost hear him asking those poor Chipotle employees a million things as I’m sitting here writing this.

“Can you add a little more steak on there for me please?”

“You’ve got to put the lettuce on there before the sour cream.”

“Put some more beans on there, would ya?”

“I need some more lettuce on there…can I get some more lettuce?”

“You need to drizzle the sour cream, drizzle it on there like this…” (as he makes hand motions to show them what he means)

When he would first ask all of these questions I would feel awkward and didn’t really know how to handle it. But now that we’ve gone there so many times and I know it’s just how Mo operates I actually enjoy seeing him in action. I can say all I want about it but the fact is even though it takes him longer than me to get through the line his burrito bowl weighs at least twice as much as mine does. Do your thing, Mo. Do your thing.

There’s just something about eating together with someone that brings out the best conversations. It’s like the food that you’re enjoying created the perfect opportunity to have great conversations. I can’t tell you how many times Mo and I have had some really candid chats over our Chipotle burrito bowls. Not all of them end well (Mo’s walked off multiple times) but they’ve all been a part of getting to know, trust and understand each other. I guess you could say that burrito bowls and some chips and guac have been the great equalizer for me and Mo and I’m grateful for every lunch we’ve eaten there together.

Our Homies at the Gas Station

Once we’re all good and stuffed with every Mexican ingredient Chipotle has to offer we wander back to my car, take a deep breath and start making our way to the last stop before heading to San Francisco. Even though a gas station doesn’t really seem like something you’d look forward to our last stop is always a fun way to end the Sunday long morning.

When I pull in and start pumping the gas Mo gets out and starts washing all of the windows. I never really ever told him to do this but it’s quickly become part of the routine. One time him and another one of his buddies Stewart were washing the windows on my car and an older woman who saw what they were doing walked over to ask them a question.

“Hey, can you guys wash my windows, too?”, she asked while most likely thinking that they were just a couple of guys trying to make a quick buck. Both Mo and Stewart gave the woman a funny look for a second and then quickly went over to her car and started washing her windows, too. This really gave me a good laugh, especially when the she gave them two dollars out of her purse once they were done.

The most important stop at the gas station is when we head into the convenience store and hang out with the two guys who work there. One of who has become one of my Twitter homies. His name’s Fernando, he’s going to college for design and he loves Pugs. We roll in there and I grab my Mountain Dew, Mo grabs anything he can get his hands on (ice cream, hot dogs, slurpy, candy, you name it). Even though Mo just ate 4-5 pounds of Chipotle he still somehow eats more things that I buy for him at the gas station. It’s kind of amazing how much that guy can eat.

Back Up To San Francisco For Dinner and Football

We say our good-byes, hit the road and head back up to San Francisco. On the way back we’ll jam to the R&B station until Mo falls asleep, which is usually around 2-3 minutes. After that I cruise up the rest of the way until we get back the beautiful city of San Francisco.

After we get back we’ll stop by the grocery store so Mo can get all of the food he needs to whip us up some dinner. Slowly but surely he’s building a good foundation of ingredients at my place so that he can cook some of the things he wants. For example, two things that Mo says I should always have in my kitchen are a bag of potatoes and Lawry’s seasoned salt. I guess I can’t really argue with that.

While he’s making the dinner we’ll throw some NFL games on the TV (which he loves to watch) and our laundry in the washer. Once all of that’s going I’ll usually take off to go get some work done and let Mo do his thing. When I come back I can usually smell what Mo’s cooking all the way down the hallway in my apartment building and I’m never disappointed in what he’s whipped up for us. I know I’ve said this before but he’s got some serious skills when it comes to cooking.

The final thing is eating dinner together, which we both always enjoy. Fried chicken, meatloaf, greens, hammocks, sausages, hamburgers, corn, mashed potatoes and chicken livers are just a few of the things that Mo’s cooked for us over the past few months and there’s never been a meal I didn’t love. “Man, you can really eat, Ryan!”, he’ll say to me whenever I go up for seconds. For some reason he doesn’t think that I like to eat. “Any time you cook I like to eat, Mo.”, I tell him. He usually just smiles and keeps on eating.

I love my Sundays with Mo.

 

[box type=”info” style=”rounded”]This is the first of a series of posts about how I’ve been spending my Sundays with Mo and here’s the second one.[/box]

For the past few weeks Mo has made dinner for us on Sunday night. This meal is the icing on the cake of a routine that has quickly become something that I now look forward to on a weekly basis. I really feel like Mo has a gift for cooking and I never see him more happy than when he’s doing his thing in the kitchen. It’s been really great to see him in his element and spending my Sundays with Mo is something that I hope sticks around for a while.

Our routine is simple, first Mo shows up Sunday morning for church. We’ve been going to the early service that starts at 9am. We then head to the Caltrain station and pick up a couple of other guys who live on the street so they can roll down with us to Redwood City, which is about a 40 minute drive south of San Francisco. This past week we picked up Stewart and Max, two guys who I’ve gotten to know pretty well over the past few months. When we pull up to the station Mo hops out of the car and goes into the waiting room inside the train station because that’s where Stewart will be sleeping.

Stewart will have been there since the Caltrain station opened up that morning and before that you can find him riding the longest bus routes in San Francisco attempting to get some shut-eye. He told me that each trip, one-way is about 45 minutes and if he’s lucky the driver will let him stay on the bus while he takes his break before driving back. Stewart has been to church with me before and hops in the back seat. He’s wearing his standard do-rag and black hoodie and he seems talkative which means he’s gotten more sleep than usual. It must have been a nice bus driver.

Max sleeps outside over by AT&T field and I’ll see him sometimes when I’m out doing my morning run. He’s from Arizona and has been living on the street for the past five months. I like to catch him in the morning when I can because he’s an alcoholic and once he starts drinking he doesn’t stop. He lives on food stamps, which is $200/month and has a tattoo of a rosary around his neck that goes down to the middle of his chest. He’s forty-six years old but has a full head of slicked back salt and peppered hair that makes him look younger than that. I’m a little surprised to find out that he’s going to roll down to church with us but more than happy to give him a ride.

We all hop in and although to most people this would be the weirdest car pool of all time it has somehow become what I do every Sunday. We all drive down together and the amount of conversation we have is directly related to the amount of sleep they were able to get the night before. But, no matter what we talk about Mo, who always rides shotgun, turns the radio to 106.1 which is the gospel station on the way to church that turns to a hip-hop station after.

Once we get to church Mo feels right at home. He’s greeted by name and everyone loves to talk to him. People are still getting to know Stewart and it’s Max’s first time but you would never know it. Although some of the people there look like some of the same people who pass them by without saying a word to them no the streets of San Francisco they’re very different. All of the guys are greeted with love and the type of attention and conversation that all humans need but that they rarely ever get to experience.We all take full advantage of the free coffee and after saying our hellos and doing introductions we head in to the service.

Sundays with Mo are great and there’s lots more to tell but I don’t want to drag this on forever. I’ll post Part II later this week when I have some time. I hope you’re enjoying reading this and just remember that you never know where your heart will lead you when you open it up more than you ever have. It’s been an adventure for me and I can’t wait to see where things go from here.

Have an awesome week and more coming soon.

 

This morning I met a homeless man named Trey in the San Francisco Caltrain station and he asked me if I could spare some change. This is a situation that I’m very familiar with.

I had a few minutes before my train took off so I told him I would buy him something to eat. He wanted Subway so we headed over to the beginning of the line to start the order. Before we even had the chance to say “footlong cold cut combo” the man behind the counter started yelling something to me that was a mix of English and some other language that definitely was not English.

“I will not give him sandwich — no buy him sandwich!” he said in a loud voice as we moved down the line of sliced meat and veggies.

“Hey, man — all I want is a footlong cold cut…” Trey yelled back. He didn’t seem too surprised that they weren’t too willing to give him what he wanted, which made me wonder what was going on.

I walked up and talked the Subway employee and in as good of English as possible he told me something about how Trey tried to take back a sandwich someone bought him for some money and that he had to call the cops on him. In other words, Trey wasn’t going to be getting his footlong.

So, we moved on to another coffee shop that’s next to the Subway and tried it again.

“What do you want from here?” I asked while checking my phone to see how much time I had before my train was supposed to leave. “Hmmm, I guess I’ll take a sausage and egg burrito and a large coffee.” Trey said and I got in line as he started telling me how he was from St. Louis and was staying in a homeless shelter that’s a block away from where I live.

Just then one of the guys who worked at the coffee shop walked out to where we were standing and told me that Trey had been stealing from him. He also told me that he had put a restraining order on Trey . I told the man thanks for the info, stepped out of line and confronted Trey about the accusations.

I looked right in his eyes and said “Hey Trey, have you been stealing from these guys?”

“No, man — I haven’t stole nothing from them.” he quickly replied.

I asked again, “Trey, are you sure you have never stole anything from this coffee shop? Ever? If you have, it’s ok — we all do stuff like this, but I need you to tell me the truth.”

Once again he told me no directly to my face and with that I had to say goodbye to Trey and head off to Burlingame. For some reason this interaction really stuck with me while I was riding down to work today which is why I felt like I needed to write something about it. I’m pretty sure that Trey has done some things that he’s not too proud and that he was in the middle of a tough time in his life where he feels like the only way out is to steal and do whatever it takes to survive.

But to that I would say that the only way for him to make it out of the struggles he’s facing and the world that he’s living in isn’t to only do what it takes to survive. It’s doing whatever it takes to change his heart and his mind from the inside out. For Mo that change has happened over time through the fact that he has been putting more faith in what Jesus Christ can do in his life than what he can control and do himself. Through that I’ve been able to help him and so have several others that have been brought into his life.

I might not be homeless, but I’m learning to do the same exact same thing in my life and it’s always a struggle. All I pray for is that Trey would one day do the same thing.

We should all be doing much more than just surviving.