At the moment, I’m still processing some strong aftermath emotions as a result of something that happened the week following the Feast of Love.  This was the third such event we did.  It’s one of the greatest things we’ve ever done with homeless people.  You can watch some highlights of the last one we did here. For several months we had started to feed the poor at two different recycle centers where needy people bring bottles, paper, metal and other materials they can get money for.  We were building relationship with them, and inviting them to our upcoming Feast of Love event.  A celebration where the poor are treated like kings and queens.  On this particular Saturday, I wasn’t going to go to the second recycle center, because I had to go prepare for preaching the following Sunday.  Tanya and the team had just left, and I was making my way to our church office, which is located in a way that we have to go through the back courtyard of our building to get to our office. As I climbed the stairway to the landing where our office entrance is, I glanced over to where we had found a homeless guy and gave him some food, hoping to get him to come to the Feast of Love a couple weeks prior. Near where we had found him, there was an open manhole that was an access point to a basement in the high-rise apartment building not far from our building.  When we met him, he told us he was living in that basement.  I stopped as I looked over at the manhole, half expecting to see that homeless guy.  It was about 50 yards from me.  Here I realized that the manhole had been closed off with a metal grate welded out of rebar. “They must have closed it off, so homeless people don’t live in that basement”, I thought.  I wasn’t surprised.  Not that long ago, there was a horrible stench around the entrance to our office, and it turned out that in the basement of the adjacent building close to our office, a corpse was discovered.  The body had had been there so long, that there was a strong stench all around the area.  It was likely a homeless person who died down there, who nobody knew about. I was about to open the office door, and go about my business, but I noticed something.   Fingers.

Squinting to see better, there was no mistake.

Hands from inside the metal grate were fiddling with it, jiggling it, doing something with it.

The hands would do that for a while, then stop.

Then they would start again.

Maybe they just installed the grate, and they’re tightening something from the inside so people on the outside can’t open it.

Then they’ll probably come out through some exit via the apartment building.

Hoping for the best, those were my first thoughts.

But suddenly a brutally uncomfortable thought crashed into my brain:

Unless that’s a homeless person who ended up stuck in the basement when they sealed off the manhole.

It was a very disturbing thought that I was mentally trying to rationalize away.

I couldn’t shake it.

I left my stuff I was carrying at the office, and walked out and around, to check it out.

When I approached the manhole, nobody’s hands were in sight.

“Hello!   Is anyone down there?”

Someone started to emerge out of the darkness.

It was the exact homeless man that we had talked to before.

 

Sergey was his name.

Before I could say anything, he started pleading for help.

“Help me, friend!  I’ve been down here more than two whole days. I haven’t eaten anything.  I came down here to get some sleep, and when I woke up these bars were all welded on.”

It was not designed to be opened.

They had made big hooks out of the rebar, and attached them to the bottom side of the manhole, and the rods protruding up to the top, they welded onto the grate in four spots.

He pleaded as his fingers groped the bars looking for some way to bend them back.

There was no way he could get it off from inside.

I was calm on the outside, but , but thoughts were racing through my head.

I realized the potential severe fate of the situation.

Should we call the police? 

Should I talk to the people who live in that apartment building and see if there’s an entrance to the basement from inside the building?

Sergey said he looked everywhere in the basement and there was no other exit.

I grabbed ahold of one side of the grate, and pulled up with all the strength I could muster.

I managed to bend one end of the grate up, but it wasn’t enough to get him out.

I decided I would go back to our building and look around the courtyard for a piece of metal or something I could use to pry with.

I told him I would be back soon.

“Please help me, friend! Don’t leave me down here! I’ll rot down here!”

He was desperate.

I found two strong pieces of steel in the courtyard I figured would help us pry off the hooks holding the grate.

I was able to get my arms through the grate, and by using the piece of metal I now had, I was able to pry one of the hooks to the side.

He started getting excited.

“Yes, that’s better!”

The second hook was not welded on as good, and it snapped when I started pulling on it. That was good.

With some pulling and wrangling with it a bit, we were able to get it open enough for him to slip out.

He climbed out, and then helped bend it back even more, to fully open the entrance.

He was in a bit of shock.  I was too.

He thanked me several times, and then climbed back into the basement to get his stuff.

All he had was a bag full of bottles he had gathered to turn into the recycling center.

He was wearing ragged old dress shoes, that were not at all suitable for the winter weather.

He was quite skinny, and he literally was shaking and wobbling on his feet, as a result of being so hungry.

It was the third day he had been stuck in that basement.

As he got out, I kept thinking of that corpse that was carried out of the other basement.

Looking at Sergey, I realized that could have been him, had I not been there at the right time.

God rescued him.  Quite literally.

The whole situation made me think about salvation.

We’re all like this homeless man locked in a dungeon without Jesus. And there’s no way we can free ourselves without help from the outside. That’s what we were all like without Jesus. Locked in bondage. Desperate.

I told him I would get him a bite to eat, so we started moving.

He was literally wobbling as he walked, struggling to keep his balance.

To my surprise he was more desperate about me getting him a couple cigarettes than getting some food.

He had smoked for fifty years, but I declined and just told him he would feel better once he got some food in his stomach.

At a nearby bakery I got him a couple croissants with meat, a cup of coffee, and a bag of cookies.

I decided to bring him with me to our church sanctuary, because I knew there were some boots left from the Feast of Love, and I was hoping we could find a pair that would fit him.

The whole situation was so surreal.

He was sitting in our sanctuary lost in thought, in shock.

It somehow reminded me of when David was alone with the priest Ahimelech, who gave him the holy bread to eat, and Goliath’s sword.

My team was gone, and it was just me and this homeless guy who just got rescued, and I was digging around trying to see what I could find for him.

It turned out there was only one pair of boots left.

But they were his size!

It was wonderful.

He was so pleased as he tried them on.

Then I gave him one of the wrapped gifts that were also left over from the Feast of Love.  (He never made it to the Feast of Love)

As he unwrapped his present, he discovered a brand-new winter hat, a chocolate bar, hand lotion, socks, underwear, and warm two-layer wool gloves.

He was still emotionally recovering from being locked in the basement, and once in a while he would just start randomly mumbling to himself “I can’t believe that happened to me, I can’t believe it happened to me”.

As he opened the present, his mumbling changed, and half talking to himself  he kept saying over and over again

“I’m so happy, I’m so happy, I’m so happy!”

He was especially happy about the gloves, as he tried them on.

I escorted him to the bus stop, and chatted with him for a while sharing about God’s love with him.

He decided he was going to try to return to his wife, who kicked him out, and try to reconcile with her.

I gave him enough cash for public transportation, and said goodbye.

When I got back to the church, I sat down and just started weeping.

I was so moved by the situation.

I prayed for a while, and just talked with God, processing what just happened.

I felt so humbled and honored that I was able to help that guy.

It was such a wild mix of feelings.  A sort of satisfaction, happiness, but also sadness and soberness.

May God use us all to rescue people out of darkness and bondage.

May we never become numb and indifferent to the urgency of the need to save the lost.