The other day was a great example. I was in the middle of a very busy set of errands; it was Aikido camp week, and I teach a little over 6 hours most days with the usual duties of running a ministry and The Gamers Guild in between. Near the tail end of my set of errands with only a couple more to do before I had to be back to teach, a fellow was walking up the sidewalk. This fellow was previously homeless, but a different individual in ministry had helped him find an apartment. He'd been looking for jobs for awhile and was in a small group that I lead. I waved while carrying boxes from UPS into the Aikido of Northwest Kansas door, figuring he was just passing by and wouldn't swing in since The Guild, Free Store, and Dojo were all closed at that hour. As I was cutting the boxes open, I heard the bell jingle at the door and he stepped in.
I asked how he was doing, and he said well and not well. I could tell by his face that he was quite upset by something. It turns out that he'd gotten a job interview, which was great, but that he'd also just gotten an eviction notice several minutes before and had gone out walking afterwards due to being so upset. The property manager had included a sticky note on the eviction notice that said if he wasn't out by Monday and if he hadn't paid rent by then that the sheriff would be by to make sure he was out. That put us on a pretty good time crunch as it was already Friday afternoon and many aid agencies closed shortly. There was also no way for me to help him Monday as I was leaving for Chicago Sunday night.
I talked through the facts with him and found out that he didn't have a copy of his contract--it was supposed to be dropped by but never was; it also turned out that he didn't know where he was supposed to pay or how since he'd never received the contract. He just knew the amount. As I pieced more and more together, we headed over to First Call for Help--a local ministry that sometimes provides rent assistance. We found out that he was ineligible for any type of assistance since he'd been helped in November with a bus ticket to the Salina homeless shelter. The policy at First Call due to its limited funding is to only provide help once a year to individuals. They did give info for a couple other places we could catch. We went to Catholic Charities next, and as we arrived we found out they were closing in a couple of minutes. Fortunately, two of the employees there were generous enough to help out anyway once they found out about this individual's situation. Their policy was to pay up to $150, but only if the remainder was already paid down to that amount. The rent was $250, and I just happened to have the register deposit for The Gamers Guild in my right pocket since the bank was my next errand for the day. With enough money there to pay his rent down by $100, Catholic Charities agreed to cover the rest. They tried calling the owner (we'd tried that earlier) only to get the same voicemail we had received. They decided to get in touch with him Monday since it was so late, but they had at least committed to cover the remainder of his rent. Now we just had to figure out where to pay that rent.
After several more phone calls (one to the sheriff to see if they really were going to be by--they weren't: the property manager was just bluffing to try and scare the tenant out if they weren't going to pay), we got in touch with the property manager who had left the eviction notice. This was accomplished without a phone number or any other contact method for the property manager--it was also God's providence that we got in touch with them, but that would be a longer story. I was able to broker peace between her and the tenant (she'd had a few frustrations with the tenant, as well), and everything got taken care of. One of my senior Aikido students walked in at that point, and then I had to go get suited up for class.
While the story itself is interesting, the seemingly perfect timing is what really sticks out to me. It was perfect timing for him to catch me at Aikido of Northwest Kansas--there was only a couple minute window. We got to Catholic Charities a couple minutes before they closed. I just happened to have $100 in my right pocket due to the errands I'd been running. We got in touch with the owner and property manager afterwards--once groups had committed to pay for rent--which smoothed that process over. We likely couldn't have gotten to Catholic Charities in time if we'd gotten in touch with the owner when we first attempted it. We also got this individual a copy of his rental agreement, helped the property manager get more comfortable with him, and alleviated the (false) stress of him worrying whether the sheriff would be by. All of this happened just in time for me to switch gears to teach, and it was all fully resolved (which is good since I couldn't help Monday). Considering how much came together at just the right time, I thank God for the perfect timing of it all. One of those things might have been coincidence, but with all of them adding up, I think He was involved with helping this fellow out and answering prayers.
Thank you for reading and for praying!
Brandon
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