Ace

In a long explanation, Ace told me, "I was almost beaten to death in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, over something that I'll never know was said, because the girl who told the guy was drunk. She doesn't remember what she said, and he came and got me while I was asleep. I had to be air-evacuated to El Paso ... I'm a (Vietnam) veteran ..."

Following his hospital stay, Ace said he walked from El Paso to Las Cruces. That's quite a long walk for anyone. For Ace, it was even more difficult. He said, "It took me four days. I have a cane, and I had a stroke last year. I've had a heart attack. I've been in seven motorcycle wrecks."
Ace thought he had been living in Albuquerque for 16 days - more or less. Ace said he was feeling pretty good even before we rolled up, but admitted to feeling a little hungry.

I asked Ace what having hot muffins, some stew and a sack lunch meant to him. Did it brighten his day a bit, I said.

He was effusive in his answer. He said, "It does. This little bit of what might seem like nothing to somebody is a lot to me. It's my sustenance."

I asked Ace what he would like people to know about him. He didn't hesitate in his answer. He said, "I'm not a bad person. I don't sit on the corner and beg just to get drunk. I sit out there and fly my sign that says, 'Traveling, Broke, Hungry,' because that's what I am. I'm traveling, I'm broke, and most of the time I am hungry, because most of the time we don't get enough to eat out here."

Ace added, "A lot of people think people come by and give you food all the time, money, clothes. It doesn't happen like that. Things happen, like happened to me... get beat up and get sent to a hospital, and have to stay there for six days."

I asked Ace if he would feel comfortable sharing with me how he arrived at his predicament. He said he was let out of prison, homeless, with only 40 cents in his pocket. Ace was understandably panicked, in fact so much so he said, "they had to drag me out of the prison cell to get me out of there."

Things didn't get much better at the parole office, Ace explained. He said, "I told the parole officer, 'You know what? You can send me back right now.' That's how bad it was, because I cannot get a job somewhere. I've got a first degree (attempted) murder conviction behind me, and I didn't even kill anybody, but that's what it says on the Internet. First degree murder, and then people scroll up ... and they see it's attempted murder, (and that I) didn't kill anybody."

With 2009 fast coming to an end, I asked Ace what hopes he had for the upcoming year. He said he has set his sights on Alabama, where he has a few friends and hopes to be able to land a job.

He added, "Not a lot (of friends) but I have a few, and then ... if I work two years I'll be able to retire. If I can get two years of honest work; if I get a paycheck, I can retire."

I asked Ace if he was a praying man. He said he was, and admitted to having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.

I wondered how the Lord had helped Ace get though all his time in prison and on the streets.
Ace said he reads God's Word and prays daily, and would not have been able to make it without Him.

Ace said he would like Christians who read this little story to pray for him. I asked Ace if he had anything to say to those individuals who just write him off as a "bum."

He said, "I'd tell them, you have no idea what I've gone through. Try coming out here for three days and trading places with me. Let me have your car, your job, your house, and you come out here and live under a bridge for three days and find out how easy it is. It's not."

I asked Ace if he had anything to say that I hadn't asked him. He said, "'Vaya con dios,' as they say in Spanish, and 'go with God,' for all you who don't speak Spanish."

My Take

I hope you won't write off Ace, and that you'll pray for him fervently. If you dismiss him and fail to make even a small attempt to get to know him, you're missing a bright treasure who the Lord chose for whatever reason to bring across your path. My guess is so that you could bless him, but if you do that along the way you may also get an unexpected blessing as well.