It was one of those summer days in Milwaukee, the kind where the unusually mild temperature was enough to lure you outside for hours.
It was so beautiful that the pastor's wife, Dr. Joycelyn Henderson, joined volunteers in moving an indoor back-to-school outreach to the church's parking lot, adjacent to the alley, separating it from a long row of tree-shaded homes.
The church, Berean Family Worship Center, was holding its annual distribution of PowerPacks®, colorful backpacks brimming with school supplies and gospel literature designed for children. The PowerPacks were donated to Berean by Cru Inner City, a long-time partner in ministry.
The church added its own touch to the book bags by inserting personal toiletry items such as toothpaste and brushes.
As they handed out the PowerPacks, Dr. Henderson, the church's executive administrator and wife of Senior Pastor, Dr. Walter Henderson, noticed a man and woman passing through the alley with two elementary-age children.
When the mom and kids noticed the activity on the church grounds, they approached the tables while the man waited in the alley.
"They wanted to know what was going on with the backpacks," Dr. Henderson said.
Each child was handed one.
| “While they began to pray, Dr. Henderson turned her attention to the man, who still watched from safe soil.” | "Is there anything that we can come and pray concerning God's Word with you?" one of the women on the team asked. "Yes, please, can you pray?" the mom, Bria, replied without offering specifics. |
While they began to pray, Dr. Henderson turned her attention to the man, who still watched from a safe distance.
"Sir, you can come closer," she said.
"He said, 'No, ma'am, I'll just stay back here."
After the prayer, the volunteers invited Bria and her family to Sunday services.
"I think I'm going to stop into your church," Bria said.
"We will be honored," Dr. Henderson responded.
"At that point, he began to come a little closer," she said, adding that as he came closer she could smell alcohol on his breath. "He knew that I knew."
Dr. Henderson said at that point, she realized the man, Anton, was standing back out of respect for the church.
"That was honorable no matter what he smelled like," she said. "You could see him kind of gradually let his guard down."
Again, she asked if there was anything they could pray over him.
He declined, saying their church's prayers for "the kids and my girl" was enough. The church administrator gently pushed.
"Are you sure?"
Anton slowly opened up, sharing with Dr. Henderson that his grandmother was a pastor and he used to go to church with her.
"I said, 'One thing for sure is this: If you ever went to church and never been born again, you can always come back to the Lord," she told Anton. "He's so good He will let us come back. … He hasn't ever turned us away.' He kind of looked at me."
| “Can you just pray for me that I'll stop drinking?” | She seized on what she felt was an opening. "Can I just pray for you?" Dr. Henderson noticed tears spilling from his glassy eyes. |
"My girl used to pray for me all the time," Anton offered. "Can you just pray for me that I'll stop drinking? And can you pray for me to at least go to church?"
"I can pray for you to go to church, but church is not going to save you," she gently replied, bringing Anton back to his roots by reminding him of his grandmother.
"If she was a pastor, she probably talked to you about (how) God said in His Word that He came to save to the utmost," she said.
"Can you just pray for me right now?"
A once-hardened heart gave way as he rededicated his life to Christ.
With the smell of alcohol lingering, Dr. Henderson told Anton she was grateful whatever initially held him back ultimately had no lasting hold on him.
She spoke from experience, reciprocating Anton's trust by showing some herself, revealing a peek into her Alabama childhood.
Her mother was a bootlegger, her father an alcoholic.
"I was never a person that did alcohol, but there was so many other things, that I could have walked away and never came back to the Lord, as well," she told him, adding, "God is — and we are, too — rejoicing. He got a smile and you could tell he was happy."
The exchange deeply moved Dr. Henderson, the fourth of eleven children.
| “It gave me another insight I think, of what these food boxes do, what these back-to-school (bags) do.” | "When that young man came through that alley I was so grateful, so grateful that I had the experience from my childhood," she said, her voice breaking then pausing. "That's why I think my heart was so drawn to him because I could smell the alcohol on this young man." |
That connection, made with a stranger in an alley separating the church from homes, touched a nerve of long-ago pain.
"I look back on it now and as children growing up, it was ridiculous to think what people said about us and the way in which they thought that we would never be anything but probably alcoholics ourselves because of what we saw and what we lived in."
Not only was Dr. Henderson not an alcoholic, but her dad was delivered from the addiction after his conversion to Christianity decades ago. Her mother also became a Christian.
"What if somebody turned away my father as an alcoholic?" she asked. "The last 32 years of my father's life, though, he served the Lord with his whole heart."
Dr. Henderson said the partnership with Inner City, especially through the PowerPacks and the holiday food distribution called Boxes of Love®, provide precious resources to transform the community one soul at a time.
"It gave me another insight I think, of what these food boxes do, what these back-to-school (bags) do," she said. "We'll never know who we're gonna meet inside of the alley or who is gonna come to our churches. The church has to be light in the darkness."
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Lori Arnold serves as senior writer for Cru's inner-city ministry.
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