A Conversation with a Homeless Princess

During our second week of summer project, we had a major push for evangelism where we asked students to consider what barriers they had to sharing their faith or people they were afraid to share with. We challenged them to face their fears during that week. Of course, it wouldn't have been fair for us staff to just sit back and watch, so we made our own list of fears in evangelism that we wanted to conquer. One of mine was to share my faith with a homeless person.

After living in NYC for the last six years, I am still at a loss for how to respond to homeless people around me. I confess that more often than not, I just hurry past them, avoiding their questioning gazes and the jingling cup of change in their hands, or I ignore them all together, keeping my eyes buried in the book I'm reading as they stumble down the subway car. What do you do? Six years later, it's a question I'm still asking.

So if I'm this uneasy just acknowledging the existence of homeless people, talking to them about my faith was about as far out of my comfort zone as the earth is from the moon.

Yet, one day as I was walking toward the Ferry Building from the Muni station, I passed by a petite, wiry, tanned woman with a silver gray ponytail sitting on the sidewalk outside of a Subway shop. I walked past her at first, but then felt a familiar whisper from the Holy Spirit to turn around and talk to her, so I did. I asked if she'd had lunch yet, and when she replied no, I asked if I could buy her a sandwich. I took her order, then came back out to sit with her and asked, "What's your story?"

Her name, she said, was Princess, but she also went by Frances since that's what most people think she says when she introduces herself as Princess. She said that she was trying to find her way home (London...but she had a Midwestern accent). She was stuck - she'd come out to the States for business, but then got left behind because "they" had conspired to keep her here after taking away her home. She told me that she belonged to the British royal family and pulled out a series of notarized documents proving (or "proving"?) her identity. To be honest, I had no idea whether to smile and nod or to challenge her claims.

Despite my doubts about her mental state, we had some lucid moments when our conversation turned toward faith. I don't remember how we got on the subject, but at one point I asked her if she had a religious background, and she asked me about mine. As I told her about experiencing forgiveness, Princess exclaimed, "That's incredible news! Thank you for telling me!" In that moment, I was taken aback - I've never had anyone respond so joyously to the gospel before! And then she went on to tell me how she met Jesus Christ in Arizona ("he's a Superstar, you know") and I was back to smiling and nodding again, unsure of whether anything I said made sense to her.

As I reflected on my 1.5 hour conversation with Princess/Frances, I realized:

• The Holy Spirit has never led me astray before, even when I don't want to do what he asks me to do
• I genuinely enjoyed talking to her
• I don't have to be afraid of homeless people
• I am ridiculously full of myself. God didn't put me in this conversation so that I could check off an item from my "evangelism fears to conquer" list for the week. This wasn't about me. It was about God and pointing Princess/Frances one step closer to Him, even if there will be 1,847 more steps in her spiritual journey before she decides to commit her life to Jesus (if at all). All I am asked to do is to be faithful with the step I've been given.

I hope that this conversation with Princess and the ones I had later this summer with Wilma and Billy & friends (all homeless) are not just isolated Summer Project experiences. Instead, I pray that they will translate to a different perspective and heart for the homeless here in NYC, even though it's so much easier to slip back into my practiced habit of ignoring them.

New Yorkers (or other city dwellers), what do you do when you encounter homeless people? What has influenced your thought process about homelessness and aid?

To the woman in seat 8B en route to NYC,

I don't remember what your name is, but I wanted to write and thank you for the conversation we had. Thank you for breaking the ice and for your friendly inquiries when I first sat down. You see, I fly a lot for work, and I happen to work for an organization where it seems like everyone has amazing spiritual conversations with their seatmates on the plane. Our founder Bill Bright led dozens of people to Christ during the course of his travels. But I must confess - when I get on planes (and this one was no exception), I usually tell God, "God, I'm fried. Can I just sleep on this flight?"

However, as I was putting my carry-on away in the overhead compartment, I saw you and felt the Holy Spirit nudging me to talk to you. I groaned inwardly, but then you greeted me and started a conversation with me! I had no excuse not to chat anymore.

Later on, when there was a lull in the conversation, I even tried taking a nap to get out of any further obligation to talk to you, but that didn't work either. You asked to borrow the People magazine that I had been reading -- which I never read, by the way. I just borrowed it from a coworker on the same flight because I had neglected to pack my own reading material. And it just happened to have a story on The Bachelorette, your favorite TV show. I'm amazed at what God used to bring us together into a conversation because from The Bachelorette, we talked for the rest of the cross-country flight on just about everything.

Thanks for opening up about your life, your family, and your culture. I really enjoyed learning about Jewish weddings and bar/bat mitzvahs and expectations Jewish parents have on their kids -- they're not so different from Asian parents! Thank you also for your openness and honesty in sharing about your exploration in spirituality and how unsatisfying, "God does everything for a purpose" sounds when you're in the middle of hard times and you can't understand why things are happening to you.

As I was reflecting on our conversation, I realized that that line is only meaningful when you know him and trust his character. I pray that you will not only learn about God in your searching, but as the Pslamist writes, that you will "taste and see that the Lord is good" (Psalm 34:8). I pray that you will get to know him, trust him, delight in him, and fall head over heels in love with him because he loves you far more fervently, relentlessly, and ardently than you know. May you find the satisfaction of your soul in his arms.

Your friend,

Jessica in 8C