Episode Seven: The Byte-Marcee
In this byte-sized interview, Marcee explains how her work with the homeless led to her miracle-it's all about respect and connection. As she says, "They matter." This concrete belief in the sanctity of all human beings created relationship, relatedness and love. Listen to how one man's life was changed forever because of it.
Transcript
I was at home packing underneath my kitchen sink,
Which I don't know about you,
But my kitchen sink,
Underneath my kitchen sink is like where everything goes to die.
And I,
My phone rings and I don't recognize the phone number.
Normally I wouldn't answer it,
But I did.
And it was him.
And he's like,
I hear you're leaving.
And I said,
Yep.
And he started crying.
["Pomp and Circumstance"] But I will tell you,
The more that I am away from direct services,
The more that I realize how every day,
How privileged I was every day to be able to walk with my folks at Wesley House,
Because,
You know,
My,
And I still,
I say my folks and,
Because it was so much a part of who I was that,
You know,
They,
Especially my homeless people,
They were treated like they were modern day lepers.
Like,
You know,
Downtown was starting to gentrify.
They,
There wasn't a place for them to go at night.
They were using their bodies as commerce and everything that they did was about survival.
Until they came into our doors.
And so at our doors,
When they came inside,
Like they could sleep soundly and safely and knew that their stuff wasn't going to be stolen.
They knew that we were going to know their name.
They knew that they were going to be fed well.
They were loved because they mattered and they had dignity.
But the thing that they taught me was their amount of hope for something different was unlike anything I have ever seen in my entire life.
And I've lived all around the world and I have never seen their hope to keep on putting one foot in front of the other,
Because it may be different.
We are created with this unbelievable amount of persistence.
It was just amazing to watch.
And just before I left,
There was this guy that I had walked with him for six years.
And he was,
When we came,
When I first came in contact with him,
He was a hot mess.
Okay,
I remember my mom being there and my mom like taking him.
We took him to the gas station to get him gas because he didn't have any gas in his car or in his truck.
I have spent numerous times in the hospital with him,
Studying with him in ER to make sure that he would get fair practices.
And the work that direct service folks do is very thankless.
And so,
You know,
Six years of resources and time and all kinds of things with this guy.
And I had given him my phone number and I was at home packing underneath my kitchen sink,
Which I don't know about you,
But my kitchen sink,
Underneath my kitchen sink is like where everything goes to die.
My phone rings and I don't recognize the phone number.
Normally I wouldn't answer it,
But I did.
And it was him.
And he's like,
I hear you're leaving.
And I said,
Yep.
And he started crying.
He was housed,
He was working,
He was waiting for a decision to be made with his disability.
He had restoration with his son.
And of all the things that he could have done,
He called me to tell me goodbye and to tell me thank you.
And if I don't do another good act in my life,
Which I can't imagine my life not being filled with good things,
That is enough to carry me for a lifetime.
Because no matter how crazy he made me,
He was always a child of God.
You know,
All the times that I,
He was in the hospital because coming down bad from drugs or whatever,
He was still a child of God.
Other people didn't treat him that way.
They treated him like a sack of crap.
But when I looked at him,
I saw something divine in him.
And it made me always be in his corner when nobody else was.
And so,
But yeah,
There was something,
There was something spiritual there underneath my sink and hearing him saying goodbye,
Thank you,
And I love you.
I think what's really beautiful about that and what's really interesting is that here you are in the middle of this mundane,
Probably slightly disgusting activity,
Down into it,
You're in the weeds,
And then a phone call comes reminding you that God is all around us and miracles are all around us.
Yeah.
And that,
You know,
People can,
People can restore and people can,
But you know,
I remember a time when that guy was digging out of the dumpster,
You know,
And just to know that he had the hope to continue on because he knew that his days were going to be brighter.
And they were,
They're not like that for everyone,
But for him,
They were.
And it was interesting to be a part of that.
You know,
We were part of so much of the highs and so many of the lows.
You know,
When I said my farewell address,
I always said,
We break bread with our people.
We laugh with them when they're happy and cry with them when they're sad and we celebrate their successes and we mourn their losses because they have value.
And the value that I see in them is not what they can give me,
But the value is who they are,
Who they were created by.
And that I have a responsibility to them that is,
The responsibility to them is because I subscribe to this idea of a higher power that calls me good and calls me worthy.
And I haven't done anything to deserve that.
It's important for me to find opportunities to do that for others.
I think what's really fascinating about what you're saying is,
Earlier we were talking about how America is such a gluttonous kind of consumerist society.
And part of becoming that society means you absolutely do not see most things as divine or sacred,
Including other humans.
Everything becomes disposable,
Including other humans.
And so we've kind of become this throwaway society.
So,
Oh,
You're homeless?
You're just a loser and you're hopeless and I don't have time for you.
So it really takes a very special,
Committed,
Devoted person to see the divine in everyone and in everything.
You know,
And this understanding,
I think what people need to understand is that,
You know,
The systems and the people that are victims of the system did not create the system.
And so the very system that was created,
They're doing their very best to navigate that broken system.
And so we blame over and over and over again,
The people who are in poverty,
That they created those systems and they have no part of it.
And those systems are archaic and,
You know,
Continue to push them further and further down.
So,
You know,
It was really important for me the last couple of years that I was at Wesley to do advocacy work because I wanted folks to hear that,
That message.
I wanted a platform where I could use my social capital to get the people's voices who needed to be at the table,
That they wouldn't been able to get there themselves,
But I knew I could get them there.
Wesley House,
It was an outreach mission or is an outreach mission of First United Methodist Church in Pittsburgh,
Kansas.
And so it was the largest food pantry in Crawford County,
And the only daytime homeless drop-in center in Southeast Kansas.
We,
The year that I left,
So I left in June of 2020,
In 2019,
It had close to 12,
000 people come through its doors.
Southeast Kansas is,
Crawford County is pretty poor.
And so how did you,
Do you see anything divine in the appointment to Wesley House?
Yeah,
I mean,
I was a broken person.
I lost,
You know,
In 2013,
I lost my papa,
Then I lost my dad,
And then I lost my nanny.
Three very integral parts of who I said that I was.
This is the interesting thing.
This is something I've been thinking about a lot.
Because it happened here as well.
For,
So I started ministry in 2008.
In 2010,
I started writing in this sheet that the Methodist Church used to make you write about like how happy where you are at your current appointment.
And then you had a list of things that you could rank,
One through three,
And then you could write one through five,
And then at the bottom,
It would say,
Is there anything else the DS needs to know?
The district superintendent.
And so at the bottom of that sheet,
From like 2010 to 2013,
I would write,
I wanna go to Wesley House.
I wanna go to Wesley House.
Every year,
I wrote that.
Every conversation I had with the DS,
I wanna go to Wesley House,
I wanna go to Wesley House.
Not really knowing what the heck it meant to be an executive director,
Or I never ran a nonprofit before.
And I got to Wesley House.
I have been married to Zach since 2008.
We would always drive through Council Bluff area on our way to Yankton.
Council Bluff and Omaha basically overlap.
And I would say as this area in Council Bluff that you could see from the interstate as it continued to grow,
I would say,
Man,
I would really like to live here someday.
Every time.
Man,
I wouldn't mind living in this area someday.
Here I am.
I have to believe that everywhere that I am put is because I am supposed to do something there.
I don't know what that is here.
I know Wesley House,
It,
I was supposed to help more people.
We succeeded in that.
Not necessarily numerically.
In fact,
The numbers started going down because people were being more successful in the community because of educational and different opportunities that were available in the community and through Wesley House.
But I know that it's not happenstance that I'm sitting where I'm sitting here today.
You know,
I remember making,
I remember when my dad was sick,
I would make these let's make a deal prayers with God.
I would,
You know,
I didn't know who God was,
But it seemed like everybody was praying to him to save my dad.
So I thought I would try it too.
So I would do these whole,
You know,
If you do this,
God,
If you get him out of the hospital this time,
I will,
You know,
Stop drinking.
So I'd get out of the hospital.
When he had a heart attack,
If you get out,
If he gets out of the hospital,
I'll get baptized.
So I got baptized.
I have no idea what that meant,
But crying the whole entire time because I thought the church was gonna explode.
But all throughout,
What I realized is that I've been carried for some reason for a higher purpose.
I don't know what that is,
But I know that I'm good at making things new.
And I know I'm good at making people feel like they matter.
They matter.
And I know that I'm good at making things new.
I'm good at making things new.
I'm good at making things new.
I'm good at making things new.
I'm good at making things new.
I'm good at making things new.
I'm good at making things new.
