Under the Overpass: A Journey of Faith on the Streets of America

I was first confronted with the issue of homelessness my junior year in college. I was involved in a number of community service projects and ended up tagging along to Scottie’s Place, which is a wilderness adventure camp for homeless kids. I suppose my eyes were blinded to their plight before, and even if I recognized it I’m sure I would have withheld my compassion because “their parents should just get jobs.” This black-and-white approach to social justice issues continued to be broken down over the years, and one of the catalysts for that shift started with reading Mike Yankowski’s book “Under The Overpass.” In 2005 I got this book to learn a little more about the plight of the homeless, and at the recommendation of a friend. I remember being spellbound by the experiment–the author and his friend would set out on a 6-month journey without any money, deliberately homeless. The premise of his story is that “Sure, I claimed that Christ was my stronghold, my peace, my sustenance, my joy. But I did all that from the safety of my comfortable upper-middle-class life. I never really had to put my claims to the test.” My facination was rooted in the fact that here were two guys embarking on an adventure that I had dreamed of since I was just a kid. I suppose it runs in my blood… my dad was a bit of a vagabond in his formative years, hopping on trains and hitchhiking to bluegrass festivals all the way across the country. I would dream of opportunities where I could test my survival skills and relinquish responsibilities, even if just for a few months. My time in college opened my eyes to the needs of the poor, and so then my reckless desires began to have a tint of purpose behind them. What if I could emulate the poor and homeless in a desire to get to know them better–to feel their pain and love them the way Christ did? After reading the book, I loaned it to a friend and never got it back… but recently I got another copy and got to read through it again… I believe my experience reading it this time was different because of my recent experiences with the homeless and the local shelter. I picked up on things that I previously overlooked… I could empathize with him when he spoke of sleeping out on the concrete… I nodded my head as he joked about the smell of over a hundred wet and sweaty men packed into an overheated room… some of these things go beyond description; you have to experience it yourself in order to fully understand it. “Under The Overpass” discusses homelessness in general, shelters, various parts of the country (Denver, Portland, D.C., San Diego, San Fransisco, and Pheonix), the well-intentioned but misguided attempts to deliver the Gospel, as well as some examples of people who truely showed Christian love and had an effective ministry. The thing I took away from this book the second time through is the redefinition of “comfort”–Mike said “Comfort is relative, a truth that was slowly sinking in. Days and nights in the open turn you jaded and numb. You get hungry enough and food from the trash looks appetizing. You get exhausted enough and the sidewalk can almost feel like a down-filled mattress. And compared to sun-baked concrete stinking of gasoline, garbage, and urine, a tree root in the park can feel like heaven [as a pillow]… Maybe the reason so many people, Christians included, are so discontent is that we hold too elevated an idea of comfort, too grandiose a notion of pleasure. That sets us up to get frustrated by every passing circumstance. We can end up focusing more on our circumstances than on the One who ordains them. When you get to the bottom, there is immese contentment in letting go of comfort.” While I’m not in the position to attempt what Mike did, I’m deeply grateful for his experiences and hope to use some of his insights in my own life. Our church is still studying through David Platt’s “Radical”, and at the end of chapter 6 he boldly says that we have a choice in life: “We can stand with the

This book an extremely well written account of first-hand life on the streets. It challenges the average Christian to take a hard look at how we are treating the homeless, and to go even further by acting out our faith. Even the chapter about returning to "normal life" was incredibly impacting.

I loved this book and its message!