The Son of God

From the Diaries of
Father River: The Street Priest
By Cliff Harrison

The Son of God
By Father River

After completing two and a half weeks on the streets during my most recent mission I returned with mixed emotions. Those two and a half weeks have brought emotional highs as well as lows.

The lows were due to the fact I didn’t have the funds to do what I wanted to accomplish, such as feeding the hungry. However, I made use of the time by accomplishing other things such as learning of other services for the homeless that I wasn’t previously aware of or hadn’t previously experienced.

I could now pass that information on to stranded homeless people.

The most pleasant thing occurred a couple of weeks ago. I was at the D Street Mission talking with Pastor Tom South from the Las Vegas Valley Bible Ministry after he gave his open-air ministry under the shade dome outside the Mission.

Being a Sunday, Tom provides religious services for the homeless prior to the early feeding of soup.

As I turned, there grinning at me from ear-to-ear was the familiar face of Mel Gibson’s look-a-like, my old friend, Danny. “What are you doing here?” we both said to each other, at the same time.

Neither of us thought the other would be back on the streets.

I hadn’t seen Danny in over a year. Seeing him again was the most rewarding sight I could have ever imagined. I mention Danny in a piece I wrote in the ROCK, called: I Am My Brother's Keeper. He is visiting Vegas for a month, before he returns to West Virginia. I am so proud of Danny’s accomplishments and I am so happy of his strong faith in God.

Danny was the most instrumental person in helping me survive on the streets during my first homeless experience in the winter of 2007. Justin Wright, another homeless friend, helped me with locating many services during that initial time when I first became homeless.

The three of us met at the "D" Street Mission where we stayed for seven nights during the coldest Las Vegas winter in twenty years.

During the day, we had to leave the Mission. We traveled together on the streets. I was severely handicapped at the time and had difficulty walking because I have fragmented knees. I needed to use a cane to get around.

Both Danny and Justin looked after me during those turbulent times I was forced to walk around in dire pain.

Recently, Justin and I found each other again, after over a year of not seeing one another. Like Danny and I, we caught up on the events which had taken place in each of our lives during the course of one year.

As delighted as I was in finding both Danny and Justin again, and bringing one another up to date, the sad thing is they are both leaving town soon. Danny will return to West Virginia and continue working with his church and doing God’s work there. Justin will head north for a promise of a better life.

Both of these guys would be a valuable asset to the RIVER Organization and could provide superb talent to the mission of the organization. Both of them believed, trusted and supported me when I mentioned early during my initial homelessness that I believed Jesus Christ put me on the streets so I could see and understand what was happening to the homeless in Las Vegas, and so I could do something about it.

It is such a tremendous loss to the Church and the humanitarian organization that they will both be leaving Las Vegas soon. But perhaps, over time, we can reunite again, or at least communicate over the websites of the RIVER Organization. Their input and ideas would be most valuable. Their combined and individual experiences would be priceless. They both have diverse talent which could help the Church organization become a viable force to help eradicate homelessness, especially during the start-up phase.

But life goes on and we need to make do with what we have. I am greatly indebted to both Danny and Justin, who I always called J.W., for what I’ve learned from them during the time I have known them. It is unlikely, without them, I would have survived on the streets due to my physical condition at that time.

During the past two weeks, after meeting Danny again, we stayed on Skid Row, Foremaster Street. The homeless corridor is along Main Street and Foremaster Street in downtown, Las Vegas.

Just like old times.

The August heat was relentless. Even in the night, with 100 degrees at ten o’clock and the concrete baking from a day’s sun scorching the body. Sleeping on cardboard, and what blankets we could later find. Life on Foremaster was pretty much unchanged, the darkness of Satan abound.


The only difference was, this time I wasn't homeless. I was on a mission. The church and the organization were growing. But I still sometimes stayed on the streets with my many homeless friends.

And for Danny, he wasn't homeless either. He was just visiting Vegas and would soon go back to West Virginia and do the Lord's work for the poor in his new community.

For now, Danny and I, and our other homeless friends, were having a family reunion and remembering the life we lived when we were "living the dream."

The newspaper strewn sidewalks where homeless people slept on cardboard or newsprint showed its ugly face in the morning when the sun came up.

The stench of urine, believe it or not, was a better smell than which came in the night. Behind us were four crematories and after darkness falls you could smell the stench of human hair and human flesh burning. The prelude to nightmares. Nothing could foster the imagination of darkness more than that stench, in the sleep. Some needed to be told what that smell was, it’s unforgiving in the sleeping mind.

A 66-year-old black man, who exchanged seldom words, sleeps on cardboard to my right. Danny slept on my left. I’m deaf in my right ear and have a substantial hearing loss in my left. I lost most of my hearing in Nam. But I was luckier than others to come out of that war.

So, Danny beds down on the side of my “good ear” so I can hear him when he speaks. The old black man is deaf in his right ear, too. His hearing was lost, I learned, in the same war. And he has the same first name as my friend, Ben.

Ben was a soft spoken man, although he was big, much bigger than I.

In the morning, when I awake, he asks, “Are you a Christian?”

I asked Danny what he had said, because I could not hear him. Danny tells me what he said.
“Yes, I am,” I said, pulling my cross forward and up, to show him. He nods and grins.

He said something else, and again, I ask him what he said. Again, Danny translates.

“He said, you were talking in your sleep, you kept calling out to, ‘The Son of God’”

“Gees, I hope it wasn’t Judgment Day.” I joked. “Not yet, anyways.”

The old black man said, “You said good things in your sleep.”

He smiled, new friendships were made.

A new day was born. Scratching and itching from our bug bites from the night, we gather up our belongings and leave the littered, newspaper strewn sidewalk behind. It’s just another day in the life of the homeless. It’s time to move on.

Over the course of a few days, Danny and I traveled, usually on foot for lack of bus passes, and sought food and shade were we could. During the horrendous August heat—the unforgiving Nevada sun--it is most difficult to stay cool.

Danny showed me places I hadn’t yet visited, and I showed him a few places he was unaware of, too. The joint company of “Mel Gibson” and “John Wayne” shared during our adventures of knowledge collecting was truly rewarding to the soul.

It was nice to be back on the streets with my old friend, Danny. If being on the streets is a good thing, then it can be with real friends.

I was amazed and content as I listened to Danny speak to homeless people enlightening them with sound advice to encourage them to find their exit from street life, through spiritual means and self-determination.

I once had great plans for both Danny and J.W. once I managed to get the church up and running. I knew in order to help many of the homeless out there, especially what they call the chronic homeless, those who have been on the streets for years, you needed to be able to communicate with them in ways most social workers and non-profit organizations don't.

That communication comes from living among the homeless. It comes from staying with them on the streets, being right there going through everything they go through. It is the only way you can communicate with them, to earn their trust. You have to keep building rapport with them, earning their trust to the extent they bond with you, and then you may be able to lead them into a program to help them.

Street Soldiers like Danny and J.W. and me could do that job. Just like bringing the Lord's sheep back to the Master's flock.

Because these guys lived on the streets as I had, they knew how to communicate with the homeless. And, that was what I was hoping for, depending upon them to help me, once the church and the organization got up and running.

But unfortunately, I guess it wasn't meant to be.

That's just one of the reasons I would miss Danny and J.W. so much once they left. They were so important to me and the Church. So important--to Jesus Christ--The Son of God.

Danny had a real means in speaking to the homeless in convincing terms. They listened to him when he spoke. And although I knew he would soon be leaving, it was interesting how he easily convinced some of those homeless people to get a hold of themselves and through spiritual means, pull themselves up by the bootstraps.

Getting some homeless people off the streets would be so easy. But for others, it would take a long time and a lot of hard work.

Danny and J.W. are both examples of formerly homeless, street people who were able to lift themselves up and move on to a better life. That usually meant getting out of town.

Vegas is such a harsh town for those who fall through the cracks and wind up in destitution.

It is hard to believe someone made this barren desert into what it is today. But for many, especially the homeless living on the streets it is still a barren desert.

But with the Lord's help, anything is possible. One simply has to have faith and hope and not lose that faith and hope.

I spoke with Nancy Ann Logan, a long-time homeless advocate in the Las Vegas area. She is also editor of the Las Vegas Poverty Magazine. The mayor, she says, wants to sell the Frank Wright Plaza, the only park the homeless are allowed to go to in the city, without fear of arrest for trespassing. She claims he wants to sell it for a fraction of its value to the new owners of the Lucky Lady casino and hotel, so they can build a high-rise there. The mayor wants to sell all city parks so they can be privatized, she said, so the city doesn’t have to deal with the homeless population.

Privatizing the golf courses the city owns around town would be a better Idea, I told her.

The city seems to be always pushing and pushing the poor homeless folks.

The old and the frail are still woken up and sometimes arrested and taken away in handcuffs for napping inside the bus station lobby. The homeless are still woken up and sometimes told to get off the bus they were riding because sleeping on the bus is not allowed.

There are more Asians on the streets than ever before. For some reason, Asians were always a rare minority before, but no longer is that true. What ever it was that seemed to reduce the Asian population from being homeless doesn’t seem to be working now.

There are more fresh faces on the streets, more people who don’t look homeless, and the foreclosures of the nation’s number one city of housing failures causing a new wave of first-time street people. Faces filled with sadness and disbelief that they could be living this way.

Foremaster Street has more people sleeping on the streets than I had seen in nearly two years. Services for the homeless are being cut and reduced just when services are needed the most. Just when things are getting worst, the top brass are slashing programs. Times are bad, and there is no let up in sight. The challenges are great.

Another man dies in the streets and even the most harden street people are upset because of the lack of assistance for him while he was dying and the willingness to call for medical help. It’s a common occurrence, dying in the streets and the lack of those who could render assistance to do so. What is the value of a human life when time is of the essence?

Apparently nothing in Las Vegas. A place where dreams are made and dreams are broken.

There is more bad news than good news. There have been many improvements over the last couple of years toward services for the homeless or public attitude toward the homeless. I attribute that mostly to the Las Vegas Poverty Magazine and folks like Nancy Ann Logan and Maria McMann, the magazine's publisher. At the same time, much needed services are being cut due to lack of funding—or will.

The difference between what the RIVER Organization will be, and is, is that we will not wait for the homeless to come to us. We will go to the homeless. We know who the homeless are; we can identify those in true need. We can do this, because we are there, and we see who the ones are that need the most help. Those who are crowed out by the aggressors suffer and go without in the game of the streets.

There are lots of bullies on the streets, other homeless people who like animals attack the weaker ones. With our knowing who they are, that won't happen near our humanitarian services. With guys like Danny and J.W. keeping an eye out for us, we will be able to prevent such things as that.

Our church is small and it is still in the start-up phase, but one day, with God's will, people won't have to suffer like they do here in Vegas.

Aggressive homeless people often take more than they need. It is the survival of the fittest. The strong prey upon the weak, the weak goes without. Be it food, such as bread, bag lunches, snacks or clothing. The aggressive take more than their share and the weak walk away empty handed. I will take clothes to those who have none. Or need some. I will go to them, for I know who needs what. The destiny of the RIVER Organization shall be in the hands of the poor, and as long as there is a need, we will be there doing what we can to provide what comfort we can for the poor.

Some day God will reward us with a new start and we will be able to move ahead and serve more people and Him.

The Son of God has called our name and we shall hear Him with the ears of our heart. We shall see with our own eyes the need of our fulfillment of His commandments.

It will obviously be a long road for us to travel, (To bring the RIVER Organization beyond the start-up phase) but then if we don’t take the first step we will never get there, to our destination. So, forward we go, in obedience to and of, the Son of God.

My two-and-a-half-week mission on the streets ended sooner than I wished it had. I returned home and after taking a long, hot shower, I finished my mission report in my diary while my thoughts were still fresh.

I have kept the journal since I first became homeless myself.

I'll miss Danny and Justin Wright.

It won't be long when they both are thousands of miles away from Vegas. I can only pray for them, and wish them success in what ever it is God has for them to do.

I hope to see them before they are off.

I'll stop down and see Ben once in a while and see if he needs anything. Just like I will do for my many other homeless friends.

It is almost time for bed. I know I'll feel a little guilty like I always do when I first return from a mission.

It doesn't seem fair that I have a nice comfortable bed to sleep on in a safe house when so many Children of God are forced to sleep outside without any shelter from the harsh element.

But I have to move on and stay strong and keep the church moving forward.

I think I'll play my John Wayne CD, Why I Love Her.

And then, I'll read my Bible and soak in the Lord's wisdom.

Tomorrow will be another day.

Father River
Las Vegas, Nevada
Tuesday, 19 August 2008

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