Hi everyone. This has been an interesting week.
After I read the above post from LMS, I took her up on her suggestion. I had never thought to do that. Anyway, I got on facebook Wednesday of this past week and searched for every FB group/agency dealing with homeless. I posted a picture of Josh taken back in November by a police officer and explained that we were looking for Josh and asked people to keep an eye out for him. I included contact information. Within a short span of time, I was inundated with many replies and suggestions from people there in Phoenix. Many offered comfort, suggestions, and prayers. Others were sure he looked familiar and mentioned where they thought they had seen Josh. On Friday, one of the responders messaged me to say she was going to take a photo and contact info over to one of the cooling stations, the main library, where people come to get out of the brutal heat in Phoenix. I thanked her for doing that. Several hours later, my phone rang. It was a lady at the cooling station, saying she had seen the photo of Josh and that he was there with her. I asked if I could speak to him. She initially put the phone on speaker, and my husband and I spoke to Josh. Silence. Then I heard her coaxing him to answer us. He asked if she could take the phone off of speaker and she did so. Then he came onto the phone.
This was the first time we had spoken to him in a year and a half. He was VERY reluctant to talk to us. We could tell he was most likely stoned. We pleaded with him over and over to let us come out there to talk with him. We asked to tell us where and when we could meet him to sit down and talk and try to figure out how to help him. He was very evasive and kept saying, "No, please don't do that. No, not now." He kept saying that it was useless because his life was s--t. He seemed to be very angry and hopeless. We kept saying that it's not too late; that we can help him, etc.
No use. He wouldn't listen. Finally, he said that he needed to give the phone back to the lady and that he "needed to go." Then he left.
It was very disappointing to get so close and yet not have the outcome we hoped for.
But, I can honestly say now that I have done everything I could have done to help him. I kept hoping that if we could find him and talk to him, that we would be able to convince him to let us come. At this point, I know he's ticked off by my posting on FB about him, and he obviously doesn't want help. Honestly, if we went to Phoenix and managed to track him down, I'm not sure he wouldn't just turn and run off. If you offer help to someone, or rather, plead with them to let you help them, and they refuse your help, what more can you do?
The next day, I updated my FB posts to let everyone know what had happened. I asked people to continue to pray and to keep Josh's face in their minds or on their phone, and if they see him, consider reaching out to him and encourage him to get help. I was overwhelmed with the amount of caring people I encountered through this.
Even though it didn't turn out the way I hoped, I have to say that there was definitely answered prayer in this. We got to talk to Josh, which was unpleasant but I'm still glad. I also now can say to myself that I have done ALL I can do. And finally, the response of people was a demonstration to me of God's love and care for us and for Josh. My husband thinks we need to continue to pray, of course, but step back and let him cool off about the FB posting and maybe get to a point where he wants help. I agree with that.
Just wanted everyone of you to know about what had occurred in our situation this week. Thanks for listening.
