“You here with that turkey?” the stranger barked down from his porch.
DeShonda looked up at the man, who towered over her. He had also been gruff with her on the phone, and that was days after he hadn’t answered numerous messages she left, letting him know that she had a complete Thanksgiving meal as a gift for his entire family. But she had been warned by a social worker that this ministry delivery wasn’t going to be easy.
“He’s kind of rough; he was kind of tough,” the clinician warned DeShonda Mathews, a volunteer with Acts of Faith Ministries. “But I think you can deal with him.”
‘He’s kind of rough; he was kind of tough.’
From the beginning, Jason was suspicious, and when he finally responded to her phone messages, he told DeShonda she could drop off the box at the door, but he wasn’t into that “Jesus stuff.”
Now, standing in his front yard holding a Box of Love®, DeShonda sensed God was telling her to show compassion for this man, whom she knew nothing about. She ignored the power differential and hollered up to the porch, where the linebacker-sized Jason was glaring at her.
“Yeah, I’m here with that turkey, ‘Turkey,’” she responded.
Her answer softened the mood but not necessarily his spirit. Jason clambered down the stairs and grabbed the box, inviting DeShonda to come inside, where three generations lived together. As the kids played in a different part of the house, he yelled at his Mom, in a nearby room.
“The lady with the turkey’s here,” Jason bellowed as he started to retreat.
DeShonda asked him to stay.
“I just want to talk to the family and pray with you,” she said.
Jason begrudgingly complied, and the family gathered together to listen as she explained what was inside the Box of Love: a turkey, vegetables, potatoes, juice, stuffing, cranberry sauce, rice, fruit, dessert, and gospel literature. The box, she shared, was a special gift from her church and the Inner City Ministry of Cru®, to show his family that God loves them and provides for them.
The attention quickly moved away from DeShonda when Jason suddenly pivoted the conversation in an unexpected direction.
“You know about me?” his voice vibrated around the room.
“No, I don’t know anything about you,” DeShonda replied.
She listened as Jason told her that his 13-year-old stepdaughter was murdered by a family acquaintance, who allegedly abused her for months, then killed her when she became pregnant. Despite widespread media coverage of her murder, DeShonda hadn’t recognized the family name.
“I had no idea what I was walking into,” DeShonda later explained during a Cru outreach debriefing in Detroit. “I had no idea that’s what that family was dealing with. So I did have a father, and his mother, and his four other children, three generations at home, who are broken, who’s mad at God, who’s angry at the world. The system has failed them. Everything is just wrong.”
‘I had no idea what I was walking into. I had no idea that that’s what that family was dealing with.’
With the family trauma laid bare, Jason apologized to DeShonda.
“I’m just mad at everybody,” he said.
DeShonda, who had already spent an hour at the home despite originally being told to leave the box outside, offered comfort, then joined the entire family in prayer.
“I said, ‘It’s OK,’” she said. “God told me you need some love. God told me to just give you grace. I didn’t know what you were going through, but God told me to give you grace.”
Jason began to cry.
“I can feel my heart beating again,” a contrite Jason eventually told DeShonda.
It was the beginning, she said, of a transformational season for the family.
“Everybody just wanted that moment, just somebody to hear their story,” DeShonda said.
Since Thanksgiving and the delivery of their box, the family is showing signs of healing as she continues to minister to them in their grief and anger.
“The Spirit was just breaking down walls with that family,” DeShonda said.
Terry Robinson, who directs Cru’s inner-city team in Detroit, said the Compassionate Products™, such as Boxes of Love®, Homeless Care Kits, PowerPack® backpacks and Easter Bags, open doors in dramatic ways that often can’t be replicated by simple communication.
“You know, I have not smiled in like two years, but this is the first time,” Jason told Terry. “Indeed, you talking and encouraging, praying with me, I’m able to smile again.”
‘You know, I have not smiled in like two years, but this is the first time.’
A long-time partner ministry with Cru, DeShonda said her church has tried different ways to distribute the boxes, sometimes in larger outreaches, which are less time-consuming than going door to door. But in His divine plan, being able to minister to the family one-on-one likely fostered the trust that prompted Jason to share his life-shattering heartbreak.
“That Box of Love shows the love of Jesus in that house and helps break down the barriers,” DeShonda said. “We’re going to pray for that family because it’s not easy; it’s not (just) one day with them. We are going to continue to disciple them, be with them, show them the love of Christ, thanks to Cru.”
Her gratitude comes not only from the Compassionate Products, but also from the regular evangelism and discipleship training church leaders and members receive as part of its outreach ministry. The in-depth instruction trains church volunteers in effective ways to listen, care and minister in a transient urban setting, which, in turn, breaks down walls that can hinder evangelism efforts.
“You are a true definition of the hands of Jesus, everywhere that you go,” DeShonda said about the Detroit team. “We appreciate your work that you do every single week.”
