To Reach the Poor

“God don’t make bad people. People just make bad choices.” If you recite those lines within the walls of the Union Gospel Mission, most people will recognize them as vintage Ron Bell. He says them now, leaning back in his chair and running a hand over his smooth head. He’s talking about his concern for the people living on the streets and why he is so passionate about reaching out to them.

Ron knows something about bad choices. He grew up in East St. Louis, was arrested for gun possession at 14, took his first bullet in his early twenties, and spent the next 20 years in and out of prison. When he was out, he was drunk more often than not. Even after coming to the Mission in 2009, Ron struggled – joining the recovery program twice, relapsing twice.

Ron also knows something about life on the street. Before coming to the Mission and after his relapses, Ron lived with a group of five or six guys under the freeway. Their one goal, Ron said, was to stay drunk as much as possible. Eating was secondary. Showering and finding clean clothes – barely on the radar. “Didn’t nothin’ matter.”

Ron came back to the Mission last December, and this go around, he’s been sober for over a year. He has a job at the Goodwill and a relationship with his 11-year-old son, Curtis.  He is particularly proud of the fact that he pays taxes and is a registered voter. He wants to give back.

“All my life,” Ron said, “I’ve been missing a relationship with God. I was reading one day, and the Lord just told me, he said, Just rest. I got this. My yoke is your yoke.

Your burden is heavy. Give it to me.” And that’s the message Ron wants to share with those still on the street.

People living under the freeway, Ron said, are just “people with problems, people without a relationship with God, people who are afraid . . . I had beliefs that they

have – that I’m nothing, that I wouldn’t ever be nothing. They need someone to believe in them and work with them, and that’s what the Mission gave to me.”

Ron is a regular part of UGM’s Friday Night Outreach – a weekly food and clothing giveaway to people living on the street.  “It’s a beautiful thing to go out and feed somebody that don’t have nothing, and by me living that way,it’s really beautiful because that shows someone else that they can try.

“I have a reading problem. I’ve been in prison most of my life. My life ain’t great, but it’s steady. And that lets somebody else know – if he can do it, I can do it. It brings hope.… Hope starts here.”