Angels walking amongst us : How a homeless man found his way.
“GOD HAS A SENSE OF HUMOR”
There is a train station in Doraville, Georgia. Across the street from the station is a charity, called “I Care Atlanta” run by Anthony Delgado.
Seven employees work at the charity which occupies two buildings. Inside there are 17 freezers. Two trucks are used in the organization, a non-profit “devoted to ending homelessness by reaching out to the working poor and homeless men women and children in metro Atlanta and surrounding communities.”
The owner of the charity, Anthony Delgado, told Jennifer Hauser of CNN that he often looks at the train station and thinks “God has a sense of humor.”
Really? Why would he think so?
Some years ago, Delgado had “an argument with his cousin” and because of it he was left at a train station in Doraville. That event opened the door to a life of homelessness and addiction to crack. “He panhandled on the streets of Atlanta to feed the habit,” Hauser’s article says.
One day in a very cold winter he was sitting at a bus station not feeling well after smoking some crack. “A man and a woman came up to him and told him he should go to the VA hospital.” He followed them wondering why they had spoken to him, but they disappeared. Delgado wanted to find the couple and he was acting in such a boisterous manner that the police nearby told him to calm down. “I was just trying to catch that couple,” he tried to explain to the police. “What couple?” Neither the police nor other people nearby had seen “a couple”.
Delgado walked away. He went to a nearby park and “started panhandling.” But he was not feeling well. His chest hurt. “A man stopped nearby to him. Delgado asked him for help to get to the VA hospital. The man walked him to the train station and gave him a token.
He recalled: “I stepped on the train, turned around and I was gonna say “thank you,” but the man was gone.
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After Delgado received help at the hospital he joined a rehab program and “got help from a pastor.”
But the encounter with “the couple that vanished” and “the man who gave him the token” was always on his mind. What did it mean?
A pastor told him, “Believe it or not there are angels.”
Delgado had reached a turning point in his life. He found a job. He went to church. After one church service he felt moved to purchase bread and pastries and go back to the place where he used to sleep on the streets.
A year had passed yet the same people were on the street – “the same people I slept next to.” It broke his heart to see their suffering. As he was going to his home he broke down in tears. “Thank You Father God,” he whispered. “I found my purpose in life.”
What was his purpose? He founded “I Care Atlanta.”
It has been tight for them to manage during the pandemic, but they have been able to make their payments.
” We’re struggling right now,” he said. “We’re feeding so many people. We give out and God fills us back up.”
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