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James’s story is quite different. A sixty-two-year-old black man, James came
to the Open Door two years ago, exhausted from a fruitless search for a regular
job. Shortly after his arrival, Murphy realized that she and I had been visiting his
son on death row. Through Murphy’s ministry, father and son reestablished a
loving and supportive relationship. On James’s sixty-second birthday, about a
year ago, he became eligible for Social Security benefits. A lawyer friend of the
Open Door worked hard to get James an efficiency apartment in public housing.
James now has his own home, but he returns to the community five mornings
a week as a volunteer. He often answers the phone and front door.
Each person who enters the community has a story of failure and triumph.
Some folks, like James, experience victories in the battles for survival and for a
life of dignity. Others with whom we have lived return to the streets and freeze
to death or die a slow and desolate death from privation.
Volunteers from the Atlanta area also constitute a part of the community.
Some people come monthly, others come weekly to serve soup, prepare supper,
sort clothes, or bandage hurts. One hundred fifty volunteers work at the Open
Door each month.
Servanthood among, with, and on behalf of the poor is the purpose of the
Open Door Community. The biblical understanding of justice informs the mission
and shapes the service performed in the name of Jesus Christ:
The kind of fasting I want is this:
Remove the chains of oppression and the
yoke of injustice, and let the oppressed
go free. Share your food with the
hungry and open your homes to the
homeless poor. Give clothes to those
who have nothing to wear, and do not
refuse to help your own relatives.
(Isa. 58:6–7 tev)
Settling In ˜ 15
The day begins early at 910 Ponce de Leon Avenue. At 6:00 a.m., one of the
partners or resident volunteers begins to cook the Butler Street Breakfast. By
7:30 a.m., the meal is ready to be put into the van and taken to an exceedingly
impoverished area of the inner city. In the basement of the Butler Street CME
Church, between 135 and 200 people, mostly black men, line up for the coffee,
eggs, grits, a piece of fruit, and a vitamin C tablet.
At 9:00 a.m., as the van loaded with empty pots, pans, and dirty dishes returns
to the Open Door, other community members are starting to open the
clothes closet and shower room. Five days each week up to forty men and
women who have slept in abandoned buildings or vacant lots come in for a
change of clothes and a hot shower. Simple bodily hygiene is most difficult for