December 23, 2016

2016 in Review



This year has been difficult, it has also been full of productivity and growth. Below you’ll find a concise list of why this year was one to remember. 

Most Awesome
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!  -Philippians 4:4
  • One full year of Eden Property Services social enterprise pilot/trial
  • One full year housing core guys in Well House
  • Purchased 29’ 5th wheel travel trailer for mobile unit
Most Awful
We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. - 2 Corinthians 4:8-9
  • Volunteer wrecked our van for food distribution
  • Neighborhood Petition against the homeless
  • Consistent harassment by code enforcement (aka “Neighborhood Enhancement”)

 Notables
I will remember the deeds of the Lord. - Psalm 77:11
  • 2 weddings between core people in our community
  • Over 18 tons of groceries shared with neighbors
  • Graced with more than 15,000 visits by our neighbors
  • Acquired Ford Ranger & 2 enclosed trailers for Property Services business
Partnerships
Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. -Galatians 6:2
  
Places Visited
"That is that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith" -Romans 1:12
Continued Team Education
"let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance." -Proverbs 1:5
Driving Values
Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. - Deuteronomy 6:7
  • Jesus’ preferential option for the poor
  • The importance of direct relationship, with those we identify with easily, and those we do not
  • A love that is radical in its sacrifice and expression of mercy
  • The inherent and God-given dignity of every human being
  • Stewardship, and the reality that no one and nothing is trash
  • Independence and interdependence, expressed in personal empowerment and responsibility
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December 12, 2016

Impermanence


Since the closing of the Well's day-time drop in center on Florida Avenue, a location into which we have poured our lives and resources over the last two and a half years, I have been thinking a lot about a certain ritual of Tibetan Buddhism. Monks will work in a small team over a period of time, usually a week or two, as they meticulously construct a profoundly symbolic and intricate design. Using tools called chak-pur, little metal straws and funnels, they apply colored sand to create the sacred mandala. If you have ever seen this process you know how powerful and beautiful it is to such painstaking focus and dedication to the creation of beauty. It really seems like a profound act of worship.

After the construction of the mandala there is a ritual deconstruction of it. This ceremonial act symbolizes the ephemerality and impermanence of life and the world itself. It is such a powerful thing to witness this masterpiece of art and discipline being swept into a jar that will be taken to, and dumped into, a local river or stream. 

It is this deconstruction piece of the ritual in particular that has been echoing in my mind over the course of the last several weeks as a team of people who have poured blood, sweat, and tears into this place, slowly but steadily deconstruct every last thing here. We build a chicken coop and now we have taken it down. A deck, dismantled. Gardens removed. An aquaponics system, drained and being packed up. Family Room, emptied. One thing after the next is another moment to reflect on the discipline and work that went into it, appreciate it for what it is, and then remove it in our best attempt at non-attachment. Like the monks who construct beauty over the course of a few weeks, this team has constructed something beautiful over the course of several years. Much of what we have built remains however because it was built in out hearts and minds, in our relationships and our community, it is a kingdom that is not of this world, and yet what is tangible in this world is this very impermanence. 

I have been so proud of our team as they show up every day and work tirelessly to deconstruct what has been the central project of their lives. They know that these coops and gardens and decks are but outward signs and symbols of something undeconstructable that is calling us forward. While many can see holiness in the monks performing rituals, I cannot help but see that same holiness in this team that I am so grateful to be a part of. I am awed by the wisdom and strength of those who can smash the work of their own hands with a smile on their faces. It is this commitment to something that transcends these mere incarnations, manifestations, or symbols that demands my attention. The very things that might tempt some to make idols of them, or at the very least produce overwhelming attachment, are let go of in an act of trust and surrender. 

So we wipe the sands from the table of 3023 away. With peace and love and hope we can let go of the forms that our work takes because it is the call itself, from which the work emerges, that holds us in its grip. 

There are many tables and there is always more sand, maybe you will join us at a table in the future as we begin our next mandala.


Below is a short video from a kids show if you would like to watch this deconstruction of a mandala that I am referring to. 



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November 1, 2016

Halloween is Awesome!



Last night over 100 college students from Intervarsity chapters at HCC, UT, & USF went trick-or-treating for our homeless friends. "We are not here to get candy for ourselves but canned goods for the poor." they told each house.  They had a little flyer with info about the Well to give every home they stopped at and on the back of that card was this note from us: 

Halloween is Awesome!
What other night can people go from house to house, knocking on doors and
be met with smiles, hospitality, and generosity. It is a night when our culture
opens our doors and lives to strangers and to children without concern for the
masks that they wear, and offers good things just for stopping by. 
We chose to use this great tradition of trick-or-treating to knock on your door
on behalf of the hungry in Tampa. Thank you for opening your door to us and
for your generosity tonight. 
Tonight we remember Jesus’ words, “Then the King will say to those on his
right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the
kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry
and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something 
to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.'”
Thank you for opening your doors to us! 

Today we unloaded a full pick-up truck into our Free Market and will be sharing that food with hungry neighbors over the next few weeks. We are so grateful for the students who gathered the food and the neighbors that shared it! This was the 4th hear of this halloween tradition/partnership between the Well and Intervarsity chapters throughout Tampa. It is a beautiful example of the prayer that is our vision statement:

 "Needs met, Bridges Built, a City made Whole"


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October 26, 2016

More Than An Address



The Well is a community of people committed to loving and serving among the poor in Tampa. The Well is not a place with an address but a people with a vocation. Maybe you have heard someone say that “the well is closing” and if, by the Well, they mean the facility on Florida Avenue which we have used as a drop-in center for the past 3 years then, that’s true. Though the location has served our purposes well over the last few years it has also come under fire from some very vocal and upset neighbors who represent the changing economics of our neighborhood. Pressure has been placed on city leadership, who in turn have put pressure on us and our landlord to move along. We have done our best to respond to their requests over the last year and have finally come to realize the inevitable shift that is taking place as the economic tides turn in Tampa Heights. I want to assure you, however, that the tenacious and committed community known as the Well, will press on. We have adapted before and will continue to do so.

While some of the reasons can be quite upsetting, we are also excited about the coming changes. While there has been a certain benefit of centralizing our work in the current location we are eager to deploy smaller teams with mobile and more agile tactics that can respond to the needs throughout our city. We are building partnerships all over Tampa where our work can be multiplied. We are also strategizing to leverage some of our assets and community to engage in social enterprises that create much needed earned income opportunities for our friends in need. Transitioning out of the building is part of a larger plan. We have built strong relationships with so many that we met over the last several years and the time has come to work with those individuals in much deeper ways. By closing the doors we conserve finances, time, and energy that is otherwise depleted by the constant, and beloved, traffic in our family room. All of those assets are limited and must be applied to the work that we believe will bear the most fruit.

We are launching a mobile outreach unit that will continue our works of mercy that provide food, clothing, showers, and other resources needed by our neighbors in need.

We are moving our community dinners as well as our monthly Conscious Party into partner locations that will promote collaboration and build unity.

We are developing plans to launch more businesses that provide opportunity, ownership, and income to those who currently lack access to the job market.

We are sowing seeds of change and compassion throughout this city and we, the Well, are and will be continuing the work we have always done here.


We continue to call on your love and prayers and partnership. Join us in the work to see needs met, bridges built, and our city made whole.

Okay, so here are some details you may want to know:
  • Our last day of current operations at 3023 N Florida Ave will be November 18th.
  • We will host a big dinner at 6pm on November 17th to give thanks and remember all that has happened here. We will be harvesting our tilapia for the event and invite you to bring a dish. 
  • We will spend the end of November cleaning and packing.
  • We will be moving everything out of the current location over the month of December and hope you will join us for workdays. 
  • We will be launching dinners, conscious party, and mobile outreach in January and pray that you will join one of the teams to love and serve and grow with us.


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October 20, 2016

Lessons from Los Angeles: Hope in the Midst of Lament




Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease
And builds a heaven in hells despair.
- William Blake

While in Los Angeles, we  joined the LA Catholic Worker for their weekly liturgy while they were in the midst of their annual novena remembering, mourning, and crying out to God for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A novena is a series of prayers prayed over nine successive days in petition to God. They end this with a protest at a nearby weapons factory. For decades the Catholic Worker has been faithful to remember the crimes of our past and call out the crimes we continue to commit. This practice of regular lament and protest educates and holds us accountable for the crimes we forget, hide, and often justify. As a nation, we believe we are morally superior and have the right to police the world, and we repeat the rhetoric of fear that leads us to bomb other nations as preemptive strikes. The Catholic Worker refuses to let us do this. They refuse to let us forget that we are the only nation that has ever used the atomic bomb. They refuse to let us pretend we have to fear the rest of the world killing us, when in our history and now, our nation is the one to fear; we are the ones bombing others. They refuse to let us pretend we are morally superior as a nation when we have the blood of millions of innocent lives dripping from our hands. We so often are the source of hells despair in our world; under the Obama administration we have bombed seven countries. We are the bully at the global playground, obliterating any who would challenge us so as to intimidate the rest of the world into submission.

For our part in this hellish despair, we should follow the Catholic Worker’s example and lament. For this, too, we should protest and never let ourselves forget.

In LA, we also had the privilege of meeting Reverend Fred Morris, a Methodist minister who was tortured in Brazil for speaking truth to power, served the majority of his life in Central America, and who now, in his 80s, is faithfully running a refugee center for central americans who have fled gang violence in their countries. To give us an idea of the violence wreaking havoc there, he shared the story of one El Salvadoran woman and her son. She ran a cyber cafe from her garage, and had to pay rent to the notorious 18th street gang. They kidnapped her 10 year old son when she could not pay them the money they demanded, and threatened to send her son home in pieces. She scrambled to pay them, her son was returned to her, and she attempted to report the kidnapping to the local police. Instead of justice being served, several gang members and a police officer gang raped her for several hours to punish her. As soon as she could, she fled with her children to find safety in California. He shared one of hundreds of thousands of similar stories.

He also shared how the U.S. played our part in creating the situation in Central America in which gangs flourished. The US policy in Central America during the civil wars and conflicts in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador was to give support to whichever side favored us, prolonging the conflicts. We justified this involvement because we were in the midst of the Cold War, and drowned the atrocity of our involvement with abusive governments in our nation’s fear of communism. This created a refugee crisis in the 80s, but young children who came here as refugees were not truly welcomed and many found family in the gangs of LA. However, as soon as these children grew into men, the US deported them back to the countries they left as babies. Once deported, all they had was each other in a nation they did not know. Ravaged and weakened by the civil wars our nation prolonged, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala had little to no government or infrastructure to deal with gang violence, so gangs like MS-13 and the 18th street gang, flourished. Today, these nations are run by the gangs that began in the US.

Our nation has muddied its hands in Central America too much to say the violence people are fleeing is not our problem. Yet we treat immigrants like dirt. ICE, the immigration police, and the for-profit immigration detainment centers across the nation are notorious for human rights abuses. Obama has deported more immigrants than any president before him, sending them back into a world they fled for fear of being murdered, and where friends and family likely have already been murdered for helping these refugees seek safety.

The current political rhetoric of fear and hate of the immigrant is too loud, widespread, and uninformed to not speak out against. Speaking with Rev. Morris left the weight of anger on my heart at the situation, at the hate we give in to as a nation, at our history, and the brashness with which our government so easily meddles with other nations and the lives of their people. This is what so many people live and die in.

This we should and must lament. In this world we are Babylon and we must cry out for forgiveness and change.

If we take an honest look out our history and cease justifying our actions with cries of security, if we face how our choices have ravaged this earth, and if we see the blood of millions dripping from our hands, how can we not lament because of what we have done and continue to do? How can we be silent when this is our part in history? It is our problem, and we must mourn the history done in our name and protest its repetition in our present. We must sing a new song of lament for the numerous crimes against humanity and the earth that our superpower of a nation has committed. We must lament personally and nationally, and protest creatively.

Our hope is taking direct action in the midst of hell’s despair. We must work for heaven, instead of choosing fear and the idol of security over love and hospitality.

While we and so many others live in hell’s despair, there is hope in working for a bit of heaven together. At the Catholic Worker, at the refugee center Rev. Morris runs, and at Homeboy Industries, they are building a heaven in hell’s despair. At the Catholic Worker it is with a loud voice and a long legacy of calling out the grievous mistakes of our history. At the refugee center, it is through speaking faithfully of the wrongs currently committed against people in our nation and world, while faithfully investing in people marginalized by our immigration system. And at homeboy, it is with the committed persistence of asking and showing the city of LA, “what if we were to invest in gang members, rather than just seek to incarcerate our way out of this problem?” Each are symbols teaching the rest of the world what is possible when you choose love over fear. They each have faced their persecution and hate, but they all keep going. They know that doing our best to create a little bit of heaven with people who live daily in hell is worth it.

We at The Well have also had our share of hate from local people. Some people think what we do is noble, but they would rather not take part and rather it didn’t happen in their backyard. Some people have downright hate for the poor living on our streets. And their disdain is now focusing on the Good Samaritan Inn, where at least 100 otherwise houseless people live. We are being pushed out of the neighborhood, and those pushing us out now have their sights set on the Good Sam. They will harass them through code enforcement, threat of fines, and criminal charges if they can find them until it is shut down. If the Good Sam shuts down, there isn’t an alternative housing situation for the people that live there, many of whom have called it home for years. The Good Sam has been there for decades. That is 100 more people living without shelter in our city, simply because some new people in the neighborhood do not like a place that has been a staple in that neighborhood since long before they moved in.

From this reality locally, to the impeding on the sovereignty of the Lakota Nation with the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline, to the school to prison pipeline, to the racism built into our government and our hearts, to the killing and demonization of black men, to the bombing and killing of innocent people globally, to the moral high horse we think we’re on, to the fear that keeps us from welcoming more Syrian refugees, to the ravaging of the earth our culture of consumption calls for, we have plenty to lament. We must lament, and hold on to hope in the beauty we find together in this hellish world. Though there is still war, though Rev. Morris is in his 80s and has seen no change for the better in our treatment of immigrants, though Father Greg Boyle has buried over 200 young men, and though we at The Well must say goodbye to our current form and space, there is beauty and joy in the moments we have together for a time. Despite the hell many of our friends live in, and perhaps you yourself, we can welcome a little corner of heaven if we will commit to speaking truth and risking love.

In sharing these reflections, I have realized it may be important for anyone reading this to know more about the author. I have not grown up with the views expressed here. I am the daughter of a military family, was homeschooled by conservative parents, am a Rush-baby (every afternoon meant lunch while listening to Limbaugh's three hour program), went to conservative, evangelical world view camps as a teen, and bought into that worldview. As I've continued to seek truth, I've found I have been so wrong. I share these reflections as repentance for the years I justified my own hate and the oppression my people have caused and contributed to for generations.

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October 4, 2016

Lessons from Los Angeles: Visibility Matters


Almost two months ago, a couple of us went on a trip to Los Angeles to join the Global Homeboy Network Conference, and meet with different organizations and people working in LA to serve the poor and destitute. This trip was significant for me, and I have been wrestling with how to share some of the lessons learned there. Many people have asked how the trip was, and some of you made it possible for us to go. I want you to know the trip was fruitful, well timed, and worth your support. However, I kept ending up with a blog post that was far too long. So instead of one blog to share lessons learned in LA, I will be breaking them up into several blogs, each with a different thought to convey.

When we first got to Los Angeles, I was wide-eyed. I don’t travel often, and I’ve certainly never been west, so I wanted to soak in as much of it as I could. LA is large, busy, diverse, and seems to go on forever, bleeding into surrounding cities. Unsurprisingly, it was such a contrast to Tampa. Although the two cities are similar in at least one way: we have the highest amount of houseless people per capita in the nation. Los Angeles has over 40,000 people living in transient housing or on the street. The first contrast to Tampa I noticed were the tents in crevices of the walls along sidewalks, the mattresses hidden behind bushes along the highway, the makeshift homes of people with no roof to call theirs. This might sound strange, but my heart swelled at the sight. It is sad, and wrong that people must live this way. But I was encouraged to see that some people were still allowed to exist and be seen even though they must live on the street. In Tampa, we sweep people on the street under the rug like they are dirt. We don’t even want to see them in the gutter. Tampa hates seeing poverty. In LA, people without material provision were visible. They were allowed to set up camp, whereas here, people with no place left to go (because Tampa has a shocking lack of shelters and resources) who set up camp outside of the Well (because we were the one place that wouldn’t shoo them away) had pictures taken of them and complaints were sent to code enforcement. All of the sudden we also were a place someone with no home was not safe to simply scrape by an existence.

Homelessness in LA is a symptom of a sickness in the heart of that city, a sickness Tampa shares. But in Tampa we hide the symptoms of our culture of self-focusedness, exclusive community, money-idolization, fear of the “other”, obsession with security, consumerism, and personal property rights over human need. The symptom of our sickness is the people on the margins living in poverty, with no shelter, in the midst of daily violence, trauma, fear, uncertainty, with basic needs unmet and death always around the corner. We isolate poor people to poor neighborhoods that we drive around on our highways, we ticket people sleeping on benches because they have no bed anywhere else, we spend money on bussing people out of our city instead of finding out how to use that money to care for our people (please visit Tampa! We’re a paradise! Except if you’re poor, then we’ll pay you to leave!), and we find excuses to arrest the houseless to hide them from our eyes; we hate seeing the results of our sickness, and this is how we numb ourselves to the cracks in our society. In LA, I was thankful that the symptom was there for all to see, and you could not be numb to it. I don’t know how people are treated in LA, from stories I heard and the locals I observed, I imagine not well. But at least you either had to show the hate in your heart by calling the police on a shabbily dressed man limping towards the donut shop door (which I overheard someone consider doing) or show compassion to the person on the street.

As Dorothy Day said, “we must talk about poverty because people lose sight of it.” It is so easy to lose sight of poverty in Tampa, and that is why we at The Well must continue to not allow ourselves to become numb to poverty’s realities in our city, or even our world, and we must continue to break through the numbness and apathy of our city.


The entire trip to LA helped remind me what is important. For the past couple months, I have been tired. Some would say depleted, some would say burnt out. Getting away, seeing a new place with it’s own beauties and issues reminded me of all the beauty and pain in my city. I was able to rest, take several deep breaths of dry Californian air, and take some space to remember what I truly value. I hope in the next several posts to share some of that refreshment and inspiration with you as I share more details about what we encountered on our trip. 
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September 2, 2016

Our First Mobile Unit!

Isn't it pretty!?

We are now the proud owners of a 2000 Holiday Rambler Alumascape 5th wheel travel trailer! This coach will be serving as a mobile Family Room and Free Market as our team begins looking to serve in other parts of the city. If the last decade has taught us anything it is that the poor are always on the move. We have watched as neighborhoods gentrify, affordable housing is demolished, and ministries that serve the poor are pressured to close or move and so we have, as a team, recognized the need to increase our overall agility. By mobilizing our services, we can go to where the needs are, and when they move (or are moved along), we can move with them. Our commitment has always been to the poor, to the vulnerable neighbors themselves rather than a certain street or block. 

We are so excited as this unit will aid in building partnerships with other communities throughout our city and county. We will be coming alongside existing works in poor neighborhoods to offer ourselves to help them love and serve one another in that place. We pray that our small offerings will add something to the work of development that is happening in our communities. If you are one of those communities that would like us to bring our mobile free market, just hit us up!

Thank you all who have given toward this project. We have learned that our truck is probably not ideal for towing such a large (9,600 lbs) trailer. We need a large pick-up truck (250) to pull this unit as well as the other coaches we hope to add over the next few years! If any of you have a truck you would offer or if you would like to contribute toward a purchase we would be very grateful. 

One step at a time we will get there! May God's kingdom of peace and wholeness come and may God's loving will be done, in Tampa as it is in the Heavens. 

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August 23, 2016

Help us take the show on the road!

We have been praying and dreaming about creating some mobile outreach units that would give us the ability to serve in other neighborhoods and develop more partnerships throughout our city. 

We have an opportunity to acquire a 29' fifth wheel trailer for only 4k! 

We need to move quick and could really use your help to make this purchase. Our hope is to raise $6,000 as we plan to use the extra money to retrofit this trailer into a mobile version of our Free Market. 

I am asking that you would please pray and consider contributing toward getting the Well on wheels.

You should also know that we have an opportunity to purchase a food truck for 14k as well. Our hope and prayer is that we will run both a mobile market and kitchen in the very near future. 

Please consider standing with us.

Click here to give!



Thank you so much for all of your love and support
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July 22, 2016

Investing in Social Enterprise! Please Help


As many of you know the Well has been in a time of serious discernment about the future of our work with and among the poor here in Tampa. In our last few quarterly newsletters we tried to paint the picture and explain some unfortunate external reasons for considering changes as well as some hard won internal lessons for charting a different course forward.  It's been a really exciting season for the team to reflect and pray and really consider what, among the many things we do, really meets specific needs, helps to build bridges, and really produces the opportunity for the fruitful relationships that we are here to build. 

Among the handful of things that we see coming, our family has been sensing a strong calling toward building small social enterprises that help develop marketable skills, earned income opportunities and also give us a chance to work shoulder to shoulder with one another in meaningful labor, which is where the deepest relationships are forged. Over the last several months we have started a small property services company, we have made a few small sales of produce that we grew in our aquaponics system to a local restaurant and we are eager to work hard at building such opportunities as we move forward. 

A few from our team just visited a community in Birmingham that has launched several successful businesses that serve to offer opportunities for work and relationship with those in the city that need it. While this may mean they work with a smaller number of folks at any given time it also makes for the possibility of deep and qualitative work with the individuals they do work with. That excites us and we want to do likewise. We know we have a lot to learn in this regard and it is why we visited. Our goal for the summer was to visit and learn from others who have done similar work. 

Next up, another small team of us are traveling to LA! Primarily, we are going to join Homeboy Industries for their Homeboy Global Network Conference. The video above is an awesome introduction to what they do. This gathering brings together a variety of non-profits, institutional, and government agencies to learn more about their social enterprise business model that is providing hope, training, and support to men and women working to reclaim their lives. 

Since getting to LA is expensive and we would rarely have the chance to be there, we decided to go about a week early to leave some time to visit places like The Catholic Worker LA, The Dreamcenter, Ron Finley (we hope), the No Estas Solo Refugee Center, and a few other social enterprises like Black Coffee. 

While this trip is a clear investment in our team and its future, it is also an expensive line item that is out of the ordinary on our annual budget. If you would like to help invest with us we would be so very grateful as we are working hard to not let our immediate expenses slow down any of our ongoing commitments. We do have a handful of other pressing needs though here we are specifically asking your help with this expense. 

Overall we hope to raise $3,000 to cover airfare, lodging, food, and the conference itself. 
Please contribute if you can. Any amount would be greatly appreciated. 


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July 11, 2016

Sharing the Work



“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Galatians 6:2

About a week ago, a woman came in to the Well and it was clear she had soiled herself and was not quite all there. She came in hungry, and was looking for a couple dollars to catch the bus so she could get to an appointment. A new volunteer asked if we could open the shower for her to wash up, and of course we could. She got something to eat, eventually took a shower and changed her clothes. I had no cash, but we had extra help at the Well that day and I was free to leave for a short time so I offered her a ride to her appointment. All this woman needed was a friend to help with transportation. Unfortunately, because the Well was still open, I could not walk in with this woman or sit with her through the appointment. I had to drop her off and get back to the Well to care for the many people there. Normally, I wouldn’t be able to leave and assist this woman at all. Hers was a simple need, and as I reflected, I became discouraged about how few people commit to the cause.

There’s an interesting phenomenon that happens when you begin sharing life with people that have no home. While among your peers, you may share about your day or a small tidbit of what you do may come up, and there appears a glaze in their eyes and a knowing smile, while the words, “oh, you’re such a good person” escape their lips. That remark has always made me uncomfortable. In a way, that remark protects the person making it from acknowledging that this is something they can do, too. It idolizes the one who does the work, putting them on a pedestal that seems unreachable and unnecessary to someone’s everyday life.

But that’s not true. This type of work is accessible to everyone, and our work at the Well does not make us good people. We do not do it because love overflows from our hearts and we have warm fuzzy feelings for the world. Most days, this work hurts and leaves us feeling helpless. When I hear people praising the work we do in such a way, I confess I get angry. I question, “if it’s so good, why aren’t others here? Why isn’t our whole city taking better care of each other? Why don’t you do this work, too?” Not to say everyone must be at the Well, but what if everyone took it on themselves to find one person in need of a friend, and poured their life and energy into loving them? People praise our work, and then send people to us so we can help them, releasing them from the burden of caring for someone. That is not ok.

Currently we have 4 official staff members and about 10+ regular weekly volunteers. That’s 14 people regularly trying to be a friend and committed to the 50 to 100 people that walk through the doors of The Well. It is too much for us to love people well. But if those of us in Tampa who are housed and stable opened up our hearts to just one person, people would not need the Well on a daily basis, and the 4 staff members and 10+ volunteer team would not be killing themselves to meet everyones need. We could focus, and truly walk alongside people in much needed restorative relationships.

At the Well, we do not find people housing, we are not equipped to find them jobs, nor are we equipped to assist them in recovering from addiction. We are here simply to befriend people, and hope that through those friendships dignity is found for those who are outcast, and humanity and community recovered for those who live disconnected from their suffering sisters and brothers. In this befriending, needs are often met. But something the staff has been convicted of lately is that we do not and can not be everyone’s friend. If you are everyone’s friend, you will be no one’s friend. If you are trying to meet the needs of everyone, there will be some serious needs that go unmet in the lives of the people close to you. It’s draining us, and we have realized how our many yes’s mean we are stretched thin, and cannot give out of the fullness of our hearts when we encounter people. Running on empty, we may actually contribute to the alienation and pain that someone may feel because we have nothing to offer from the depletion of our own energy. This is incredibly convicting. We are here to love people well, but we cannot because there are too many people and too few of us.

So we will be cutting back, retreating, so that we can love better. Love ourselves, love each other, and love the stranger we hope will become a friend. And I want to challenge you, the next time you see someone on the side of the road, ask yourself what you can do for them. The next time you meet someone in need, stop your hand from reaching to your phone to call your humanitarian friend. I promise you, their heart is already breaking from the amount of people they cannot help. Open up your own heart to that person. If they need a meal, take them out to dinner. If they need clothes, open up your closet or take them shopping. If they need to be listened to, open up your ears. If they need a place to stay, open up your guest room. If they need family, open up your family. Not in charity, but in true hospitality that recognizes the face of Jesus in everyone you meet. Someone whom you sought as friend may someday become your brother or sister. Bear someone else’s burden, and share the work of loving the needy in our city.


Find someone you genuinely connect with and share your abundance with them. We are tired from sharing from our emptiness. 
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