Zachariah not the prophet

 

When I got up this morning, I planned to do my prayers meditations and stretches and look at a camper and head to Spearfish Canyon about an hour away and then to Theodore Roosevelt State park in ND. Then I walked the dog and saw a man on the street by the hotel with a sign -“I am homeless. Please help.”

When I got food for Trooper and left him to eat in the room, I asked Zachariah if he would like to have breakfast. 

“Sure”

I asked his name and told him mine. We went in and  I told the cashier my new friend and I would like to have breakfast. I asked what he would like and he said an egg McMuffin and coffee. Since the Morning University told me about the McDonald’s app, I got my breakfast sandwich - today egg and bacon biscuit (bacon was just a smell of bacon but the rest was good) and senior coffee.

In visiting with my homeless friends at Galloway United Methodist Church at Grace Place (http://gallowayumc.org/ministry/missions-outreach-2-2/our-jerusalem/grace-place/) I learned to sit and listen and slowly invite them to talk if they wanted and if not let the silence embrace us. 

Slowly Zachariah opened up. He ended up here when he was looking for his long lost family and found them on the internet in Scott’s Bluff, NE on the reservation. His uncle offered to come get him in St. Paul, Minnesota where he was living and bring him. 

When they got to Rapid City, he said “there would be no jobs on the rez so just drop me off here.” He has been stuck here ever since. When I asked about shelter he said he stayed at the shelter but had to leave after 30 days and hopes they will open up again in the winter for him.

“Are you Lakota?”

“Yes and part Mexican.”

Meals seem to be everyday but Thursday. Sunday - Anonomous an undercover cop feeds at the church down from the Hope center and looks after him. Monday - a feed at the skate park.  Tuesday - Taco Tuesday (his eyes lit up on this one).  Wednesday - wiener Wednesday. Friday and Saturday at the skate park.

I asked if he drank and he said only so he could get in the Anonymous Clinic at night.  “You can only get in if you are intoxicated.”  Hmmm.

When I asked if his hat was a Rapid City hockey team, he said no it was the Rapid City Rockers - the school of mines. “

“My wife saved a man’s life because she knew CPR”  As he teared up, “He gave her this hat and she gave it to me since she does not much like hats.”

I gave him some contact numbers in case he decided he was an alcoholic. And he went to the library to get on Facebook and said hie wife was coming next week.

May God bless you Zachariah.