My Homeless Anam Cara

Clark Massey left a profitable job in finance to live amongst the poor. Today we’ll talk about the ministry he started - inspired by Catholic Worker, Saint Francis, and Mother Teresa - and what he’s learned from the personal relationships with his friends who live in poverty.

Clark Massey founded A Simple House in 2003, which he calls “an experiment in Christianity.” I volunteered with A Simple House for a year after college, where I received firsthand experience of small-scale ministry - and the scandalous notion of loving a few people really well.

Learn more about A Simple House at www.asimplehouse.org.

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Kelly Deutsch

Welcome to Spiritual Wanderlust, where we explore our interior life in search of the sacred. Many of us will travel the whole world to find ourselves but here will follow those longings within to our spiritual and emotional landscapes. In each episode, we'll talk with inspiring guests, contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, neuropsychologists and mystics with a blend of ancient wisdom and modern science, along with a healthy dash of mischief.

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Kelly Deutsch

Will deep dove into divine intimacy and what it means to behold. I'm your host, Kelly Deutsch.

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Kelly Deutsch

Hi, everyone. Kelly Deutsch here. Welcome to our next episode of Spiritual Wanderlust. Today we have joining us Clark Massey, who is the founder of a Catholic inner city ministry called A Simple House. And Clark and I met years ago when I spent a year volunteering at a simple house. After college, Clark founded the ministry back in 2003. When he left his job in finance to go live among the poor.

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Kelly Deutsch

They now have houses both in Washington, D.C. and in Kansas City. And I'm excited to have Clark here today. Clark welcome. And to start us off. Would you mind sharing a bit with us about the inspiration to start a simple house? Maybe a little bit of your backstory and how it all began Good.

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Clark Massey

Yeah. So we founded Simple House 2003 Washington, DC. The idea was to kind of have a voluntary poverty ministry where no one would make a living from the ministry and kind of live in the rough parts of town southeast Washington, D.C., and try to meet people as friends, you know, go into people's homes, try to help them wherever they're at.

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Clark Massey

Don't have a ministry. We were trying to purposely non non non-institutional like we weren't going to be a place where we sat behind a desk where you brought us a forum and we said, do you qualify? You know, and we're just going to meet people, talk to them, and then just kind of let things grow and have about as much.

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Clark Massey

I still think even today we have as much freedom. Our missionaries have as much freedom as any once ever had to determine how to help people and how to befriend people and love people.

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Kelly Deutsch

And that's one thing that I've always been struck by, you know? I mean, while I was volunteering even that I remember once being at someone's house and their social worker came over and their total demeanor changed. You know, it was all. Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am. And as soon as they left, they're like, oh, you know, and they could just let their hair down.

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Kelly Deutsch

And they never and most people didn't even know the name of the ministry was just like, Oh, Clark, them are here. Right. And that struck me so much because it it was more human, you know, and it was very non-institutional. And I think that's. How did you come up with that? Where did that come from?

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Clark Massey

Right. I even think in a perfect world, the ministry wouldn't even have a name. I mean, I think we have to have a name in order to have a website, in order to fundraise. Right. But like, I really want it to be Clark befriending or Julia or Sara or whoever the person is just befriending, you know, the goal of our ministry, kind of where it came from was I was a member of two different ministries.

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Clark Massey

I was a member of a ministry that was going into the project on Thursday nights and doing Bible studies for kids. And it was very kind of organic, like we had a basement room in a project building, and then we'd send these people we called Pied Pipers and they'd just walk through the neighborhood, all these kids, and start following them, you know?

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Clark Massey

And then we'd have this Bible study that would be absolutely nuts. Like, we had to have bouncers through the Bible study. And if you could hold those kids attention for 15 minutes and make it look anything like order, it was an you were an amazing teacher, you know? I mean, like, like there were pipes on the ceiling and people would literally hang on the ceiling, you know, during, during, you know, while working with the kids.

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Clark Massey

And it was a great thing. But what struck me was I got to go door to door and meet the mothers of the children because everyone in the neighborhood was a single parent family and it was all women. And when you would knock on their doors, it would be like they couldn't believe you were there. Like, what are you doing here?

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Clark Massey

You know, And I think it was because they were getting excellent help from institutions. Like they were getting food stamps, they were getting housing, they were getting, you know, all of these things to help them get along. But they were getting very little help from the church or just from friends. And the other ministry I was doing at the time was a Catholic Worker house, which is kind of this tradition of having a house that's just very personal and welcoming people one on one as friends and having them eat at your own table and shower in your own shower.

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Clark Massey

And so we were running a little house near DuPont Circle in D.C. that was a little bit rougher place there just today.

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Clark Massey

Serving like a couple hundred people on a Monday, Wednesday or Friday. You know, but those guys were getting a lot of church group help. And I found that they were kind of closed to friendship and relationship, but they were very used to like a group from Iowa came in and cooked for us, and they were very happy to see them.

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Clark Massey

And we could have like the three or four wine conversation with them. Right. But they wouldn't have necessarily the deeper conversation. Whereas like when you went in and met these mothers, they were just like pouring forth, you know, so the goal of Simple House was to create a ministry where we could really help those families because as mothers are the ones really fighting the good fight.

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Clark Massey

I mean, they were in the worst neighborhood with the worst schools with almost no money trying to keep their kids you know, trying to raise their kids. Right. And so we wanted to help them in a very personal way that they seemed very open to. That's kind of where the ministry came from.

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Kelly Deutsch

Yeah. Yeah. And I find your story fascinating, too, because, I mean, you you left everything from the financial world, right? I mean, how did that come about? That must've been quite the St Francis switch.

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Clark Massey

I feel yeah. I feel lame even trying to talk about it, but it's like there's something in the gospel to me that's like dynamite, right? And we're always trying to explain away the dynamite. Like it's hard for the rich to get into the kingdom of heaven. Like, every so many years. That verse has to be read in every Catholic church.

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Clark Massey

And then you spend 30 minutes trying to explain why it doesn't say what it says. You know, I mean, and these to me are the most dangerous verses in the Bible and like, at least listen to them, right? So to me it was like, do I just try Jesus at his word? Do I? There's a lot of it's weird for me to even say, this kid don't even recommend this.

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Clark Massey

It's like there's a whole lot more ways to go crazy about trying Jesus than have it worked. Yeah, yeah. But, like. And to me, it was like, I really want to be friends with the poor. I really want to know them.

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Clark Massey

And it's worth trying this. And if it fails, it fails, and that will be fine. But it's not worth not trying. While not trying didn't feel like an option Hmm. Mm hmm.

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Kelly Deutsch

Yeah. What led to the switch? I mean, was it a pretty distinct moment in time? Or did you have I mean, was there a lot of soul searching involved? I mean, because I think I remember you telling me once, I hope you don't mind me mentioning this. I think you said once that you didn't even own a refrigerator because you're just like, eat out all the time, like you and me, too.

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Kelly Deutsch

You were making plenty of money.

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Clark Massey

Yeah, well, I certainly never cooked at home. I had this funny situation where when I was kind of trying out things, I got this apartment, and I moved in with my clothes and a sleeping bag and no furniture And I think this is a great way to do it, because most of us, we have, like, all these possessions.

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Clark Massey

And then you try to limit down you see what you can do without. But it's a different approach when you kind of start from zero and say, what do I need? And you start adding and you find out you need a fork, you need a shower curtain, you need just a few things, you know, but you actually do need them, you know, so where was I going with that?

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Kelly Deutsch

Yeah, like what led to the switch went how did that come about?

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Clark Massey

I don't know how to explain that. Besides saying I felt like there was something out there that I needed, you know, I could deep call or deep. And it started when I was in college, and I didn't really understand faith very well at all. I just thought it was kind of a neat thing that might keep you psychologically healthy.

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Clark Massey

You know, I didn't think of it as something that you'd build your life on or gamble on and say, Yeah, and a monk came and gave it to talk. And I know I'm talking to contemplative monk right now, so it's a common interest. We all have a monk came who was a Benedictine monk and gave a talk and said, Hey, you know, instead of going on spring break, why don't you come to the monastery?

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Clark Massey

And to me, I could not believe how great that sounded. Hmm. Like, I think I had this idea that truth is out there and that if you seriously go and are quiet and search for it, you will find it. You know, what is there religious tradition where you climb the mountain with a bowl of fruit and give it to the guru?

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Clark Massey

Hmm.

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Kelly Deutsch

I couldn't even.

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Clark Massey

Say I think it's somewhere it's either Hindu or some yoga tradition or something, but it was this idea that there's this person out there who you can go and, like, he's like a guru, you know, where do we go? Right? So that's what I thought of the monastery as. Right. And then at the time, I was living at this hippie co-op called the Sunflower House.

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Clark Massey

Okay. And when I went back there and said, I just saw this monk, and he just invited to go to the monastery, people all thought it was great. And when I went to my Catholic friends and said, we have this opportunity to go to the monastery, they were like, No way.

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Kelly Deutsch

Oh, interesting.

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Clark Massey

It is, right. It's as if they were afraid of it. Hmm. But then, like the hippie club I was living in with, like, that sounds amazing. And literally after I went, I went back and started bringing people from the co-op. You know, so there was this idea of, like, wanting to find the core of meaning or the truth and kind of wanting to go to this, like, monastic idea of doing it.

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Clark Massey

And I think somehow with me, I thought that truth is with the poor kind of based on that, the attitude to blessed be the poor like the poor have this treasure that we need to unlock and like. And when they said, blessed be the poor, they didn't mean this like beautiful poor person. Who's extremely moral, who, you know, has all these virtues.

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Clark Massey

They actually mean the poor who are have always been the poor, like the drunk on the side of the road. The you see people who are very problematic issues, you know, and that somehow within their there is something special. And so somehow to me, my kind of like monastic urge was to go to the poor, to love the poor and to somehow find what they had.

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Clark Massey

Hmm. Hmm.

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Kelly Deutsch

Yeah. And as I'm listening here, I'm picking out some of the various influences just the monastic influence. It sounds like there was a little bit of maybe the experience at Catholic Worker and some other ministries that you're like, I like some of these things, but I also want to do something differently. What else would you name whether as figures, movements, saints, other people who are inspirations or influences to the ministry.

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Clark Massey

Then I kind of go off what you're saying a little bit, a little bit different direction in that. I remember deeply that my grandfather was very holy and he was a farmer, and he I don't know if he made it all the way through high school. Right. But he'd he had a bunch of kids and he'd just spent a lot of time alone in a field, you know, and he was the type of guy that you could, like, say, an idea, too, about God or about truth or about life.

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Clark Massey

And he would know if it's right or wrong, but he wouldn't necessarily know how to intellectually break it down Mm hmm. Like, you could almost, like, encourage you if he knew you were on the right track or he'd be quiet if you weren't on the right track. Hmm. You know, and then I remember going to college and meeting people and seeing this kind of thing that was in me, too, that it's, like, very proud.

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Clark Massey

Like, we have it figured out. We're worried about the United Nations here. Right. And then I'm thinking my grandpa who doesn't worry about the United Nations at all, but seems to know something about life. Mm.

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Kelly Deutsch

Yeah. Like wisdom versus knowledge, almost.

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Clark Massey

That would be a way to put it. Right. But in a way, we disdained the wisdom because we just because he was uneducated or he wasn't with it and he wasn't concerned with these big, important issues that we actually know him influence on. You know, he was concerned with what he actually had before him, you know? And I feel like that's part of what the poor have.

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Clark Massey

Know that this is like part of what the treasure of the poor is. And so I really wanted to be personal, like Dorothy Day and like the Catholic Worker. I really wanted to make real friends with the poor the way St Paul said, you know, not just help but be real friends. And part of being real friends is authentically sharing or helping them, you know, sharing of your goods and sharing of your spiritual life and all these other things.

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Clark Massey

So it was really kind of like this idea of like kind of breaking that down and just getting to the most basic form of helping people.

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Kelly Deutsch

Yeah. Yeah. It reminds me of it was that Oscar Romero who said, you say you love the poor. Tell me their name.

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Clark Massey

There's some. Yes. And there's something like this that when you try to help all the poor and fix the problem, you actually end up fixing nothing.

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Kelly Deutsch

Yeah. You know, to me a little bit more about that because I feel like there are some ministries that, you know, like, I don't know, Catholic aid organizations or any kind of aid organizations that help millions. Whereas, you know, I don't know what your size and scope is, if it's dozens or hundreds or something like that. But talk to me about the difference between those two, because I could see some people saying like, well, there are others who impact more.

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Clark Massey

Right. And I think that I think this is very interesting in the context of Mother Teresa, like Mother Trees is a big influence on us, too. But she would pour resources into someone who was dying. I should pick someone out of the street is dying. There's three days left to live and when she died, I remember picking up The New York Times and you went I went to the Opinion Page where they're like eulogizing her and they had equal space between the negative and the positive on Mother Teresa.

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Clark Massey

And it was just blew me away that there was this huge negative article on Mother Teresa. But I'm glad they put it there. I think it I think it clarified things. It was like it was this article of how Mother Teresa is not actually fixing the problem. Mother Teresa needs to be training new engineers and Mother Teresa should be pouring resources into the person who's dying on the street.

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Clark Massey

You know, but I think that what Mother Teresa I think that critique is just based on a different eschatology. Meaning, like if Mother Teresa believes that these people are eternal, then every act of true love is an eternal act and in a sense has value into eternity. Whereas if you believe that life is truly over, when life is over physically, then you're just working to maximize consumption.

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Clark Massey

Or enjoyment or happiness. Like within that span. And anything that's not maximizing that looks ridiculous to you. Hmm. Right. And so I think that simple house is trying to center itself on that eternity that, like every great act of love is eternal and will have this eternal benefit. And I have faith in that and a more faith in that than I have faith in getting this kid to go to college.

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Clark Massey

Mm hmm. Although I'm not against getting the kid to go to college, I just won't do that at the expense of the other.

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Kelly Deutsch

Yeah. So how do you where does that fit in your grand scheme of things as far as working for systemic change? Because I feel like that's an important thing. But is that just not what your ministry does? Or how do you relate to that question?

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Clark Massey

I, I think most people need to make systemic change secondary to personal change. Hmm. And I think that if you're doing everything correct, helping the person, you know, then you will also start addressing the systematic. But if you skip the persons, somehow it backfires. Hmm. I believe that we're a justice ministry inadvertently, but we're primarily a love ministry.

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Clark Massey

All the time. We're fighting for justice. There's like, little issues we have going on right now where we're even going to hire a lawyer for someone to make sure that they aren't railroaded. You know, but I'm really doing it because I love that person. I'm not doing it because I'm trying to get a systemic reform. But I want I guess I don't know how to say both that I want systemic reform, and I'm willing to work for it.

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Clark Massey

But the person's always first and lepers are always first. Hmm.

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Kelly Deutsch

Yeah. That whatever systemic work you are doing is born out of a loving relationship. It sounds like.

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Clark Massey

Right? Hmm.

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Kelly Deutsch

Yeah. That's lovely.

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Clark Massey

I believe it's lovely, but unpopular. Sure.

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Kelly Deutsch

But understandably, I mean, especially when there is so much that stands to be changed and needs to be changed. I mean, I'm sure you see that all the time in working with underprivileged populations and seeing just how it seems like all the odds are stacked against them. You know how difficult it is. And so many.

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Clark Massey

Well, I have two thoughts. Like, I want to talk about systemic change, but one that is I just think there's a lot of ways people could radically improve their lives right now without a systemic change. For most of the people I work with, you know, stop using a substance or apply yourself to a job a lot of good things could happen for that person very immediately.

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Clark Massey

Right. But then the other thing that's kind of in the water right now is I feel like there's this way of judging all history as conflict and conflict between groups. And they could be races that could be economic groups. But it's it's explaining all history as power struggle. Right. And I think fundamentally, Christ needs to break that. And I don't believe fundamentally that's what history is.

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Clark Massey

I don't believe that Martin Luther King was just fighting for power struggle between races. I think he was fighting for something deeper and more. Right. And more loving than that. So what's weird, though, is that, like, as that way of thinking has become more popular, just seeing all history as this power struggle, our ministry looks more silly. I believe that actually attacks the core of what we do.

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Clark Massey

And I think it also kind of attacks the core of Christ in the sense that Christ is a person at a time intervening in history and radically changing it, not for power. Hmm. Mm hmm. You know, and I think as followers of Christ, that's kind of our job to, you know, so to to to explain everything in terms of just struggle and power and systemic oppression, I think is doesn't work with our worldview.

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Clark Massey

Totally. It ends up making the church the arm of Western spiritual colonialization or imperialism. Mm hmm. You know that, like, missionaries are just Western imperialists on this. We're in the spiritual arm. And I think that that's just not true. And I think that that, you know, and so I feel a need to reject that.

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Kelly Deutsch

Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And, I mean, that's especially living in the Northwest now. I mean, that's such a cry of people is like we need to decolonize Christianity, you know, because there is but a sense of, I don't know, whites Protestant domination that needs to just spread itself Hmm.

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Clark Massey

I think there's this interesting thing like Geronimo. I don't really understand the history of this that well, but Geronimo, when he kind of did his last stand, he was speaking Spanish and he was Catholic and he had all his kids baptized. So there was a sense in which we weren't really just fighting like it wasn't just like the story of human history is far more complicated.

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Clark Massey

Sure. You know, there's a lot of biases that are happening that aren't what they appear. Um, I don't know how to unpack that fully. Yeah. Yeah.

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Kelly Deutsch

For those who are just joining us, I'm talking with Clark Massey, who is the founder of The Simple House, which is a Catholic inner city ministry. And so we've been talking about his influences background, how he founded this ministry or organizations a group of friends who go about loving the poor. And Clark, I'm curious if you would, if you have any stories that are top of mind as far as how working with the poor or some of these specific friendships and relationships that you've developed over the years have changed you.

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Clark Massey

Before I did Simple House, and it was very important that I think that some policies, nonprofessional that like I have to earn money doing other things or seeing the back of my workshop behind me right now, you know, it kind of tries to create purity of heart. And I think before I did Simple House, I didn't feel like I lived in purity of heart.

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Clark Massey

I didn't feel like I'd really tried or given everything yet. And somehow getting in that space allows peace. Hmm.

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Kelly Deutsch

You tell me what you mean by purity of heart.

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Clark Massey

It's kind of a state where you feel like you're trying to do the right thing. You believe you've tried your best and you're kind of leaving it out on the field. Hmm. You know, or. And you're not having to second guess yourself all the time or consciously critique yourself all the time. And I'm not doing a great definition of it because it's such a mysterious concept.

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Kelly Deutsch

Yeah, it sounds like it has to do with authenticity and living in alignment with who you are and how you're made.

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Clark Massey

Right. Like, we're almost always living in denial of something like some issue. We don't want to deal with some problem we have that we don't want to confront. Right. And I think that if you live a life committed to dealing with the problems, you don't want to confront you. You have this sense of peace or purity of heart.

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Clark Massey

Hmm.

00;24;01;04 - 00;24;06;27

Clark Massey

That is not really answering your question, Kelly. Yeah, I'm just taking it new directions.

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Kelly Deutsch

That's okay. That's okay. I was curious if you had any stories to share and the ways that maybe taking a cue from that, how I was working with poor. How is that helped? You have a greater purity of heart, greater authenticity, helped you be more Clark.

00;24;30;02 - 00;24;50;14

Clark Massey

Well, I'm thinking of this time I was at the Catholic Worker right before a simple house started. And the Catholic Workers, this kind of it was a little house. We were sheltering seven homeless guys. And three days a week, we had an open house of hospitality where hundreds of people would come in and we'd make soup. We let them use our washer dryer or whatever.

00;24;50;14 - 00;25;12;18

Clark Massey

But I was in that house and I realized I was kind of getting dumber like I was kind of forgetting my like I have a degree in math, and I was kind of forgetting what I knew. And my clothes are starting to wear out. And I was maybe I just felt like I started to discover I was proud of things about myself.

00;25;12;18 - 00;25;51;01

Clark Massey

I didn't know. I was proud of that. And I was also getting tempted to things that were like I thought things I hadn't been tempted to before. And I was like in this kind of spiritual crisis and I really believed in what we did. But in applying myself to it, I was getting humbled pretty bad You know, like like people aren't necessarily grateful when you help them, you know, and people can yell at you and curse you out and you can try to do the right thing and you end up but but like we don't say, oh, you have to do the thankless job.

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Clark Massey

Of course, I just I just carry that cross, right? But like, I was finding that it was actually really bothering me. And I my mind just inadvertently started to try to think of, like, ways I was, like, better than other people. And I as soon as you realize you're having that thought pattern, you know, you're being an idiot.

00;26;12;13 - 00;26;37;24

Clark Massey

You know what I mean? I you know, that pride is like, trying to get you right. And then as I'm having that thought pattern, I started thinking that, like, well, I made by God, I made at the beginning, and God loves me. And I felt like great peace with that thought. When that came over me, I was like, going in my bed and then I thought, and so is every jerk living in this house.

00;26;40;20 - 00;27;03;15

Clark Massey

So that jerk, you just yelled at me today, you know, made by God and God loves him. And so then it was like both this, like, great, like exaltation and then this great boom humility of, like. And so is everyone. Everyone's special, Clark, you know? And then I had this second thing I thought and like, but I'm kind of like, see, God.

00;27;03;15 - 00;27;23;14

Clark Massey

And I'm trying to know, and I'm trying to welcome him back in my life, trying to be redeemed. And, you know, all these things you know, have this relationship with Christ and God and. And then, then I thought, and I need to hope and pray that every single person in this house, even the Hitlers of the world, have that same experience.

00;27;23;25 - 00;27;45;22

Clark Massey

Hmm. You know, I need to humbly pray that all of them have that experience, too. And it was just this idea of our special. It's like we're all the center of the universe. It's like God is so infinite that he can make us all the center of the universe.

00;27;50;06 - 00;28;07;22

Clark Massey

I don't know. I don't know how to explain that any different. But there was something in there that a lot of freedom came from and trying to, like, kind of recenter oneself in that. And just being gods and also knowing that everyone else is God's Mm. Yeah.

00;28;08;05 - 00;28;14;11

Kelly Deutsch

Yeah. Take you out of that center of the universe in some way, or recognizing that we all are kind of in some way.

00;28;15;00 - 00;28;15;26

Clark Massey

Yeah, I think.

00;28;15;26 - 00;28;17;27

Kelly Deutsch

That we're so infinitely loved. Maybe.

00;28;18;11 - 00;28;27;10

Clark Massey

Right. Right. Yeah. Hmm. Trying to give a ministry story so people can actually understand what we do.

00;28;28;27 - 00;28;29;19

Kelly Deutsch

Yeah. Yeah.

00;28;30;02 - 00;28;48;20

Clark Massey

An example from a couple of years ago was there's kind of a we usually work there networking. Like, once you meet some poor people, you actually find that poor people are some of the most generous people in the world. You will meet people who are feeding the kids from the apartment next door, and they only have a couple of days of food, and they don't know what they're going to do after that.

00;28;49;28 - 00;29;10;11

Clark Massey

Yeah, And we had a homeless guy. We used to follow around and follow around. I was his friend, and he would go from camp to camp and he would introduce us to all the people in the camp. And it was a great way to meet people who maybe were ready or maybe really wanted that or needed that friendship or could really receive.

00;29;10;20 - 00;29;31;23

Clark Massey

And so it was just kind of neat to like follow him around the city. And I remember one time he had a relative die, and he was from a small town in Missouri. And we had to debate what we were going to do, you know. And I think I think we found this out on Easter morning a few years ago, that he was underneath the bridge.

00;29;31;24 - 00;29;53;04

Clark Massey

It was raining and his relative had died. And he was just super drunk, just crying his eyes out. Right. And we ended up bringing him up, put them in the van and driving him. You know, I think we took him to the ER at first and a cop got watched us do it and started following us the whole way.

00;29;53;28 - 00;30;09;25

Clark Massey

And we were kind of terrified the whole time because I was drunk and not buckled. In, and we were going to get in trouble if he pulled us over right by the cop kind of peeled off. And second and I think he was, say, making sure we're okay when he saw two people walk underneath the bridge with the dude and put them in their van, you know?

00;30;11;11 - 00;30;35;29

Clark Massey

And so I felt like that was a blessing afterwards. But we ended up helping him sober up that day. Got him some clothes, you know, just, you know, real cheap clothes that were would make them be presentable for a funeral. And we started driving him back to his hometown, you know, was like 3 hours away. And you're kind of nervous whenever you're stuck in a car with somebody you don't know that.

00;30;35;29 - 00;30;55;00

Clark Massey

Well, who's Yeah, but we drove him back, and I remember he as we're getting back, the people at the gas stations we stopped at would recognize him you know, and that was just blowing us away as like who we have here. Is this guy famous? And he goes, and when we get there, my kids are going to try to kidnap me, he told us.

00;30;55;23 - 00;31;19;25

Clark Massey

And so we walk into this, like, town square, and he's like, at this at the funeral home, and all the sudden we see all these little kids start running across for grandpa. And this is their grandpa who'd been drunk underneath a bridge in Kansas City. You know, and just, you know, and we ended up sure we had to promise them we'd give them a ride home back to the bridge if he wanted it.

00;31;20;14 - 00;31;38;11

Clark Massey

But his family convinced him to stay in the town. Wow. You know, so I don't know. I don't know why I brought that one in particular, but it was just like our ministry's goal was just to really love people and meet them where they're at. And a lot of times, these people are amazing. Yeah, they're always amazing. Sometimes we tap into it.

00;31;38;28 - 00;31;40;23

Clark Massey

Yeah. Yeah. Hmm.

00;31;42;22 - 00;32;09;13

Kelly Deutsch

As you were talking, I was remembering just other things that stick out in my minds that made a simple house, distinct as far as its ministry approach. You know, instead of just, like, handing out food or material things, being able to be involved enough in people's lives that you know exactly what they need, or at least have a hunch.

00;32;09;24 - 00;32;11;29

Kelly Deutsch

And like I remember one time thinking.