It’s difficult to imagine just how dangerously cold the weather is in the depth of winter. Shelters are few and far between, leaving the homeless to seek out friends who will take them in, or else huddle together in corners with them to find warmth. 

I had just parked my car and started towards the downtown area where I walk each week, when I saw a building displaying the evening’s temperature as minus 14 degrees. Adding to that there was snow on the ground with a stiff northwesterly wind bringing frigid Arctic air to the city. I remembered once reading that, with bare hands, frostbite will occur at zero. 

It was at that moment that I saw a man shuffling slowly and painfully towards me gripping his walker with bare hands, one slow step after another. I said hello to him but with his head down, he continued on his painful way. I crossed the road to talk with a lady who has been on the streets for about 20 years and is more or less a fixture in the area. I have never managed to find out her real name, but when I met her for the first time, she was celebrating her 50th birthday with a hat that said, “Sweetie” so that has been my name for her ever since. 

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She was sitting in a doorway huddled in a corner out of the wind. The elements had dampened her normally chatty nature, and as I approached she just stared at me with a blank expression and only the hint of a smile escaping her lips.  

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Since I started my work on the streets, I have been in the habit of keeping notes each week of the people I meet and some comments about our discussion so that when I meet them again, I can pick up where we left off. I jotted down a few notes and put it in my pocket as usual and then made my way as I always do to pray at the doorway where my friend Chilly died of an overdose three years earlier.

When I finished paying my respects, I looked in the window of the adjacent building called “The Followers Mission,” which is often open late in the evening for the homeless to have Christian music and company. Unfortunately, even it was closed on this cold winter’s evening. However, in the window there was a scripture verse for all who were passing. It read, “Romans 15:13.”

At that point I wished I had paid more attention in Scripture class since it certainly was not one that I was familiar with. I looked for my notes that I had been keeping for the evening so that I could add this piece of wisdom, but unfortunately, I found that somehow the notes had fallen out of my pocket at some point in the evening. 

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I decided to retrace my steps of the whole evening and on my way, I saw something in the distance lying on the ground and I thought for sure it was my notes. When I got there, I realized that it was an envelope with the image of a box tied with a ribbon carefully drawn on the outside. Underneath were the words, “A Present for you.” I opened it up and read the message inside. It read, “Merry Christmas. You are loved! Never forget that Jesus died on the cross for you! May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in God so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.  “Romans 15:13” 

On that cold winter’s evening, I realized once again, that God is the God of surprises, and that in the midst of the homelessness, and perhaps hopelessness of the street, we are the ones who are called to bring this Christmas message to the world. Not so much by our words of preaching, but by our ministry of presence to those who long for hope in their lives and say, “Where is the Church?”