I was struggling to know how to be a pastor to Don, the most recent member of our church, who had heard a Mennonite preacher at a homeless shelter. “I think I’m a Mennonite! Can I come to your church?” This was how our journey together began.

Don was blunt in his questions and critiques. A Vietnam veteran, he struggled with finances and spilled coffee on the carpet. Our congregation didn’t quite know how to interact with Don.

Was he just trying to get money? (He rarely asked for financial support.) Did he want help finding housing? (He found and kept an apartment on his own.) Were we to help him stop hoarding? (His things made him feel safe and secure.)

Don asked if I might help him navigate the system to find housing and a job. (Or, more likely, I insisted that I go with him to help get his life in order.) Oh, my goodness! We spent the day visiting one organization after another.

I was frustrated when it seemed as if no progress had been made. If a pastor with a master’s degree, a car and all the privileges that come with my ethnicity and position couldn’t figure out the system, how was someone with fewer resources supposed to figure it out?

Eventually, Don decided what he wanted, what he needed and how he was going to live. He connected with the Veterans Administration and received the benefits he was entitled to. He went to counseling and worked through some hard stuff.

And he kept showing up to our church. He opened our eyes to the piecemeal network of shelters, short-term housing, point-in-time counts of the homeless and competitive requests-for-proposal that decided who would host emergency shelters for the winter.

Often my conversations with my spiritual director included stories (or complaints) of Don. One day she asked me, “Why do you suppose God sent you this angel?”

“Angel? Are you kidding?” I retorted.

But she spoke wisdom I wasn’t quite ready to receive.

I learned a lot from Don. He helped me understand the causes of and re­sponses to homelessness. He taught me about post-traumatic stress disorder. He gave me lessons in resilience and helped me dig into my theology of nonviolence. He trained me to be a better listener rather than a problem- solver, a fellow journeyer as well as a leader, a patient companion.

I can’t help but think of Don when we sing “Helpless and Hungry” (Voices Together, 268).

Who is the stranger here in our midst, looking for shelter among us?
Who is the outcast? Who do we see amid the poor, the children of God?

As a stranger, this angel puzzled his way into my life and the life of the congregation, softening our edges, opening our eyes and speaking truths we weren’t always ready to hear. Thank you, God, for strangers.

Doug Luginbill of Bluffton, Ohio, is conference minister for Central District Conference of Mennonite Church USA.