A Christmas night MIRACLE: How one man saved a homeless stranger’s life

You're listening to the Hidden Lightness on America Out Loud Talk Radio.

I'm your host Jimmy Hinton.

There's a story that definitely caught my attention and is worth re-sharing here.

And you won't find it on the media anywhere.

I actually accidentally found this on social media and a man it made me cry.

I'll admit it, I'm a grown man, I'll admit it.

I cried.

It touched my heart and definitely worth talking about today.

This story began on December 25th, 2025, just this last Christmas, literally on Christmas

day.

There's a social media influencer.

He goes by shot Savon and his real name is for short, Safi.

He goes by Safi, but his full name is Safiola and Safi got his camera out and this is kind

of where the controversy I guess comes into this and we'll talk about that in a little

bit and kind of what my feelings are on that, but he was filming and he saw this homeless

man who was laying on the ground and it was pouring down rain, freezing cold and this

poor man was laying on his side and just groaning and Safi walked over to him and he's

like, hey, we got to get you out of the rain.

What can I do for you?

How can I help you?

Can I get you a hotel room?

The man's name is Don by the way, the homeless man, and he could barely talk.

He was just winsing and pain and you can hear it in the video, I'll link that in the

show notes.

It's a Facebook reel, but man, it's absolutely incredible and Safi was talking to

him and got down on his knees and he was really talking to him in a very sweet way and

talking to him like he was a friend and I really appreciate that because a lot of times

people treat homeless people as if they're a project and they kind of make a show of it

and they act and you can just tell that they're putting on an act and I am not a fan of

that at all.

If you're going to genuinely help somebody, just do it and even though he recorded and

he does talk about that, I'll read his quote where he addresses that but Safi did

record it but to me, what it did is it really inspired me and I hope it inspires you and

that's kind of that balance that we run here, right?

With the social media influencers and I've covered this plenty of times but you have people

like Jimmy Darts and Mr. Beast and you know, on and on, you have very famous social media

influencers and they record these heartwarming incidences where they help people.

Victor the great, he's another one or Victor the greatness, I guess.

Victor the boss, I think that's it.

I get them all confused.

There are so many social media influencers now but Victor is the one I had covered a story

on him where he's a, he's a recovering drug addict and he goes around and and films

every single encounter but he finds homeless people who are addicted to drugs and he offers

them a free scholarship to get into rehab but they have to accept it, they have to want

it and he doesn't coerce them, he does not force them in any capacity and he films it,

he films every single one of these encounters and he's one of those who films the good,

the bad and the ugly.

So even for the failed quote unquote failed stories where people relapse that he's helped

out, he's honest about it, he's very transparent and he says like not everybody is going to

get clean unfortunately and that's just, that's a risk that we have to take but the alternative

is to do nothing.

So in any rate there's kind of this balance that people have to run and I get it, I understand

it because on the one hand you're filming somebody at their most vulnerable point which

is very, very invasive.

I mean very invasive.

A lot of these people can't technically consent to be in film because they're in a, in a very

bad vulnerable position.

And the other side of that is that when people are filmed, when these things go viral,

it doesn't inspire many other people to step in and do, to do acts of kindness.

And so the question is, I guess it's a question for another, another podcast for another

day, but the question is, is it worth filming?

Is it worth possibly exploiting somebody who's at their most vulnerable state?

Is it worth that?

Is it worth possible embarrassment, even a possible lawsuit?

Is it worth that to expose these people, to show the kindheartedness of these social

media influencers, to inspire other people?

I don't have an answer for that.

I, I'm not really here to answer that question but I do want to raise that concern.

It's a valid concern.

And again, we'll talk about this more as, as a show unfolds because Safi did address this

and he addressed it very directly and I thought very transparently.

And so that's a good thing.

But at any rate, what happened was he had encountered Don who was a homeless man who was laying

on his side in the pouring down rain and he physically couldn't get up.

And Safi said, man, I got to help you in my car.

We got to get you out of the rain.

And right away there was, there was a bystander who walked over and he pulls out his wallet

and he hands Safi $100 and he was like, here, give this to him.

He's like, whatever it takes, I'm going to help you put this man up in a hotel.

We're going to get a medical care, whatever it takes.

And right off the bat, I'm going to say this is what inspires other people.

And when we step in and we do the right thing, it inspires other people to step up and

act, period.

And there have been studies that were done on what's called the bystander effect where

people will tend to do what like-minded and like-dressed people around them will do.

For example, in the study, there was something like two or three people had literally been

stabbed and they were bleeding out on the sidewalk.

And the first person was dressed, I think, in a suit and tie.

He literally stepped over top of the victim who was laying on the ground.

And immediately after all these other bystanders, the people walking by, they did the same thing.

They would step around or over top of this man who was literally bleeding out.

And so they did this study and they found that the psychology behind that is that people

tend to not react at all, like they don't react emotionally if the first person doesn't

react because they just assume, well, either somebody's faking it or they're overreacting

or somebody will call 911, but whatever it is that's going on in their head, they tend

to do what the other people, what the first set of people do, who are dressed like them,

who are in the same kind of socioeconomic status as what they are.

You tend to do the similar thing as the people in front of you.

And I know we can all argue all day long until we're blue in the face that, well, I would

never, I would never fall prey to that.

But what the researchers have found is that we don't really control it, that it's just

kind of hardwired into people.

And so they say, what you should do, if you want to break out of the bystander effect

as the first person, you know, you're the first person to kind of walk by somebody, they

say, don't just yell out and say, hey, can somebody help?

They said you specifically point to one individual and you say, you right here, the lady in the

blue dress, you call 911, you physically stop somebody and you call them out by their

appearance or whatever, you know, some kind of a marker and you say, I need you to help

me.

All right.

So the bystander effect is really, really powerful, but it works in the opposite direction.

Where if we step in and we start helping, chances are much better that somebody else is going

to stop and they're going to help.

And that's exactly what happened when Sophie started helping Don.

There was a bystander who saw him on the ground talking to this homeless man and right

away, he walked over, cut his attention and you can tell just kind of by the way the

guy's dressed, you don't see him fully in the video, but you can kind of see from the

waist down, you can see how he's dressed and the guy doesn't look like he's hurting for

money and he pulls a hundred dollar bill out of his wallet and he was happy to help.

In fact, he insisted on it.

And I thought that was really cool and it's just a powerful reminder that there are good

people around us and we need to get this idea out of our head that people are selfish,

that people don't want to help other people that if anything happens to us, we're just

on our own and we'll just be left out there to, you know, kind of hung to dry.

And that's not the case.

Now, that doesn't mean that's not ever the case because very clearly Don had been there

for a while.

Don had been laying literally on the pavement in the pouring down rain with literally nothing

to cover him except a light, it looked like a light coat.

And his face was down in the, in the water, very filthy and he was just groaning, he was

winting in pain.

And it's just, it's heartbreaking and, you know, Safi said something to, in the video

that really, really stuck out to me, he was like, you know, it's, it's Christmas.

He's like, this is not okay.

And he said, I'm going to take all the time as much time as we need.

He's like, what do you want me to do?

What do you need me to do, Don?

Do you need me to call 911, do you need, and he said, no, no, I don't, I don't want

the police involved.

And what that told me, now I know I'm making, I'm making an assumption here, but based

on my experience, what that tells me is that Don doesn't trust the police.

We found out later on he didn't, didn't have a government identification, he didn't

have a government ID card, he literally had the clothes that were on his back and that

was it.

Don has probably been robbed more times than we can count.

He's probably been kicked out by the police more times than he can count.

Told that he needs to move on, that he can't stay here, that, they don't care where he

goes, he just can't stay here.

You know, I'm sure that's a regular routine in his life.

It's very, very typical of the homeless population.

And so he didn't want the police involved.

And Safi was saying, well, Don, what's wrong?

What can I do for you?

And he said, I have still your lightest.

And again, you can barely make out what he's saying.

I mean, he was weak.

He was physically probably hours away from dying.

And that's not an exaggeration.

And Safi said, well, what's wrong with you?

And he said, I have still your lightest.

I've opened sores on my legs, I can't, I can't stand them too weak.

He had holes in his legs.

And you can actually see it.

He pulled the covers off when he was in the hospital and I got to tell you, it'll break

your heart.

To know that people are living in these conditions.

And there are people, unfortunately, who walk past homeless people all the time.

Who don't give them any attention or any time of day.

And it's absolutely heartbreaking.

And we want to break that pattern.

And that's part of why we do the hidden lightness, right?

That's why we shine the light on positive stories like this.

And this story does have a very, very positive outcome.

But we shine a light on these stories.

We let that hidden lightness come out into the open because we want that to inspire other

people.

We want people to step into action.

It literally took the kindness and the boldness of one person to do something, to say something

to stop, to talk to a homeless man, to talk to dawn, to insist.

And he had to be persistent.

You'll see it in the video.

He had to be persistent.

He was like, I'm not taking no for an answer.

Because dawn at one point, I think he said he was like, just go away.

Just leave me alone.

And Sophie said, I'm not going to do that, Dawn.

I'm not leaving your side.

And a lot of people have this perception, this false perception that homeless people choose

to be homeless, that they want to be homeless, that they don't want help.

They want to be helpless.

They want to milk the system or whatever it is.

But I see it very differently.

I saw a man who had absolutely no dignity left.

And he said in the video.

He said later on, he said, I need to learn to love myself.

And Sophie was like, yeah, you're right, Dawn.

You deserve to be loved.

You deserve to love yourself.

You deserve to be loved by other people.

You're worthy of that.

And he meant it.

And it just, it really, really made me, it made me tear up.

I mean, it's a very, very emotional encounter.

But so, so inspiring.

We're coming up on a break here.

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I want to share a story and I'm going to play a little bit of a clip here.

From Safi, he's the social media influencer who met a homeless man on Christmas Day.

He had the wherewithal and the compassion and this truly is a story about loving your

neighbor.

He had the compassion to take this man who was lying down in the rain, pouring down

the rain, freezing cold, winsing in pain and eventually he convinced them that he needed

to go to the hospital.

So Safi drove him to the hospital.

He called ahead so that nurses would be waiting outside.

They took him in and they started to care for him.

He had severe cellulitis and I want you to listen to the exchange in the hospital.

This is just moments after Safi took him there and I want you to hear this encounter.

Now it's really hard to hear what Don says because he's barely audible.

He was in such pain.

He couldn't even lift his head.

He was so weak.

And I want you to hear the compassion in Safi's voice.

I want you to hear what he says to him.

Okay.

What's wrong with your leg Don?

That's how you like it.

It's been tough huh?

Don't ever be too hard on yourself Don.

You deserve peace too.

Love you bro.

I don't think you're broke or is it time to stay and all of a sudden start to think

all the eggs and tell you what the eggs were and I get those and some of the eggs.

Anybody show up for you?

You're not doing a very well Don.

You gotta love yourself Don.

I'm gonna leave you with them okay?

I don't remember man.

I didn't know you were this bad.

That's what I said man.

Oh these are love these.

I should have gone one of these good.

I'm thinking about getting you an electric scooter.

How fast do you want to go?

Not that fast.

Hi everyone.

I am Donald's brother and I just wanted to take this moment to thank each of you.

Our family is deeply, deeply grateful for your overflowing loving kindness that you have

shown.

I especially want to thank Safi, a stranger, a beautiful stranger who chose to see my brother

Donald as a real human being who needed support in a critical moment.

We got Dave on Donald, he is doing well and he's recovering.

He wishes he could make this video himself but he's a lot of pain right now and so we

are taking it day by day.

We are staying close to him and standing by his side through this long road back to full

health day.

Alright so it's pretty cool, pretty, pretty powerful and you know you heard him say

you're not in good shape, you're not doing good done.

He said no I'm not and I don't know if you heard that he later on you know after after

he was alert, he was awake.

He pulled the cover off and showed his legs and they were just so destroyed and he said

they told me that I had maggots in my legs when he came in he had maggots.

I mean can you imagine?

Can you imagine living in those conditions?

Being in that much pain you have maggots on your legs and you don't even know it because

you're so weak.

That's the shape that Donald was in and his brother was so grateful is like I'm just

I'm so incredibly thankful to people by the way 115,000 dollars has been raised since

Sophie posted that.

He started to go fund me 115,000 dollars raised.

That's incredible and this is what I'm talking about I can't ever overstate the kindness

of other people and had people not been aware of this and this is where we get into this

tricky business of filming people and people being stuck at their most vulnerable places

in life and filming that and putting that on full display for the world to see I man

I hesitate I've never done it I've never done that before and I hesitate.

You know I went to Haiti back several years ago and I took pictures and you know nothing

to graphic or anything but I you just the poverty and pain all around you suffering and I

was very hesitant to even post pretty benign pictures because to me it felt like an invasion

of their privacy they didn't ask to be on film they didn't ask to have pictures taken

of them and sometimes I can feel pretty spammy and you're like oh look what you know look

what I did and I don't ever want to give that impression so there's this fine line that

you really have to follow and it's tricky it's tough there's no way around that but when

you have the courage to post you know the other side of that is when people see that other people

are suffering they want to step in and they want to help and this is a case in point this is not

anywhere on the media to my knowledge there's not even a local station or local media outlet anywhere

that covered this story I can't find a single one I can only find this on social media and that's

the case for a lot of these stories a lot of these viral stories will never be shared though never

be made public on on the media be it local or mainstream media and and so the question is

how do we spread the word how do we how do we become a network as a nation how do we become

united and sharing information where we're doing it in a sensitive way but we're getting word out

there because I can tell you Safi could not do this on his own there's no way that he was going

to raise a hundred thousand dollars on his own a hundred fifteen thousand dollars to cover medical

expenses and to get Safi off the streets I mean to get dawn off the streets there's no way that

Safi could have done that on his own he needed a community of people and the only way to do that

unfortunately the only way to do that is to film it because video moves people so he filmed the

encounter and I'm going to read this exchange that he had because I think it's it's pretty powerful

he posted this on March 6th so just recently and he did a post and he said we did it we changed

the path of a stranger's life with a hundred and ten thousand dollars now it's a hundred and

fifteen thousand thank you for everyone who donated his story hashtag dawn hashtag stranger

all right and then he put stuff he put this in the in the comments he pinned this comment he said

I I just wanted to share my thoughts on some of the comments dawn really thinks highly of his mother

as far as I know she was the one who showed up for him the most dawn didn't like being on camera

and he didn't really have a choice in the matter that goes back to what I was talking about you know

in that moment when somebody's that vulnerable they can't consent to being on film

and so Safi acknowledges that he's like he didn't like being on camera he didn't he didn't have

a choice in the matter he said we found him in a vulnerable situation and I never meant to hurt him

but help him by organizing to go fund me to raise money in other words my intention was not to hurt him

my intention was to help him and to start to go fund me and to raise money for him

so Safi goes on to say his story is complicated and he has deeper scars

that I have no right to share because it's not my place but he loves his mom and his family does

care for him he didn't have a bank account or ID so an immediate family member was needed to

accept the money for him his brother wanted to speak on his behalf because he was an extreme pain

and checked into a hospital the brother is not getting money at all the money is legally dawns

and he is going to need it for treatment if it's right or wrong dawn needs a support system

during this time he can't do this alone try not to get sucked into conspiracies or gossip the truth

is dawn wanted this to happen this way all right so I thought that was pretty powerful and transparent

you know he admitted that dawn not only didn't ask to be filmed he didn't really like being filmed

who would who would like being filmed in that vulnerable of a situation where you're

winning in pain and you're laying face down on the dirty grimy pavement as it's pouring down

rain who who in the world would want that video of yourself that's the image that the world sees

who would want that out there I don't think any of us would want that picture that image of us

out in the public for millions of people to see but there's another side of that story

dawn knew that that was the only way if his story wasn't out there if people didn't know how

dire the situation was dawn would have gotten help and so dawn was incredibly grateful and that's

why he said the truth is dawn wanted this to happen this way he didn't like it he didn't like being

on film but dawn wanted it to happen this way and I believe I really truly believe that whole

heartedly I don't think stuff he's just saying that I don't think he's trying to pacify his his

followers I think he legitimately legitimately dawn is so grateful

any understands there was no other way for this to happen and so that's the tension that we feel

right that's the tension that social media influencers feel and the fact that they're getting paid

because they have a following I'm pretty sure that his channel is monetized

and so Safi is is most likely I don't know for sure but he's most likely monetized and he's

making money off of views of these videos and I got to say I don't have a problem with that

as long as somebody is doing it for sincere reasons and I can tell by the way he approached on by

the way he stuck by his side by the way that it was Christmas day and I assume Safi has his own

family yeah he sacrificed time with his family to go to the hospital I don't know if any of you have

ever been in a hospital in an ER but if you're quick in and quick out you met the holy grail

hospitals that you know the unicorn that I've never I've never seen before anytime I bring

somebody to the ER I'm there a minimum minimum of four to five hours minimum usually a lot longer

you know Safi was in this for the long haul and he loaded him up in his own personal car he

you know he did all the right things he took him to the hospital he insisted and when the nurse

came out in the video the nurse came out and she said what's what's going on here she's like

are you an Uber driver like what happened he said no I just I I saw him lying down at the gas station

and he's like it's cold it's pouring down rain and and and it's Christmas and I couldn't just leave

him there and the nurse she kind of gave a nervous laugh and she said well I can't take him unless

he consents he has to want to be treated as the Safi said dawn say yes you need to be seen you

need to be treated you deserve this you deserve to to be seen by a doctor and he can hear dawn

he kind of quietly says yes he said okay and that's when you know that exchange happened where

dawn said I I need to start loving myself and Safi's like you're right you you deserve to love

yourself you need to love yourself but what happened you know it it was really hard to hear

and you have to watch a couple other videos to kind of get the full story but

dawn was a barber he owned his own shop now he was a very successful barber and

he said that standing on his feet all day long he started to develop cellulitis and it got so bad

because he neglected it it got so bad that he was not able to work anymore then he lost his shop

and then you know the rest I guess as they say the the writing was on the wall and the rest was

history he lost his his barber shop which means he lost his profession he lost his source his

only source of income he lost his home and I know one of the criticisms I read some of the comments

and people are like well why why didn't his family just step in and help that's making a whole

lot of assumptions you know I know plenty of people who are really stuck they're in a bad place

and there's not enough money in the family for them to be able to help they do what they can

but you know that was one of the questions Safi he's like well if if you talked to your mom

why she not taking you in and he said because she's caring for my grandmother and I can't

she can't risk infection I can't infect my grandma she's too vulnerable

you know and and and it's so wrong of us to judge where people are coming from but we do it all the

time you know people tend to point fingers and they're like well you know that shame on his family

for not taking them in how could the how could they watch their family member be homeless living out

in the street barely making it and they're living high on the hog and you know like people come to all

these assumptions but as he listened to the story unfold Dawn was saying I don't have a phone I

you know I I can't contact my family he said my phone keeps getting stolen every time I get a

phone it gets stolen and that's what I mean I think that's part of why he didn't want the police

involved because he's just so used to to get and take an advantage of or to be kicked out of places

and told that he can't sleep certain places so what homeless people do is they learn to survive

and they learn to put up walls they're professionals at putting up walls

and keeping everybody they don't trust anybody they keep everybody to distance and it's just sad

it's it's really really tough it's a tough life and almost nobody chooses to be homeless

yeah it's it's a tough tough life very difficult and I hope the stories like this really inspire

us to open our eyes to the people who are out on the streets because they're all around us

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again there's a story of dawn dawn is the homeless man who adds severe cellulitis and was

I think on the verge of death I think he was that weak I think he was that sick

and there was a thoughtful social media influencer by the name of Safi and Safi saw him lying on

the ground in the rain in the cold on Christmas day I mean it's quite honestly the worst possible

scenario for dawn and Safi saw him not as a homeless person not as somebody who could have been

tweaked out on drugs he never treated him that way he saw him as an individual a human being

who was suffering and he decided to do something about it he stepped into action immediately

and he started to comfort him first of all with words and then he asked him what he needed

he asked him how he could help then he offered to put him up in a hotel he actually called

multiple hotels and because it was Christmas night they were all full and another bystander had

stepped in and was really generous handed a hundred dollar bill and insisted that dawn take the

money and dawn kept refusing it and this other stranger said no you you need the money please please

take the money and I just thought that was really cool and the the other bystander said you know

we're going to do whatever it takes he said we're in this now in other words we're committed

and that's one of the important things about stepping in to help somebody when when you first

check on somebody you better be prepared to be committed

and our culture teaches us that things should be instant that we should be able to help snapper

fingers hire somebody to do it you know whatever and we want to be minimally involved a lot of the

times and it just doesn't work that way and so that really resonated with me when this person said

well we're we're in it now you know we're committed I thought yeah you you are committed

and when you when you help people especially if medical care is needed that's not something that you

can just abandon somebody and brush them off on somebody else you've got to be committed you have

to be willing to stand with them sit with them pray with them cry with them talk with them

advocate for them and on and on and on it goes because a lot of times when somebody's in that

bad medical condition they can't advocate for themselves at the hospital and you hear that in

this video that I think that's why this video resonated with me so much because I've been in these

positions and I've seen how important it is to advocate for other people you have to be willing

to make phone calls you have to be willing to sometimes be a little bit aggressive you have to

ask nurses and doctors there are questions you have to communicate exceptionally well sometimes

you have to tell them what the wishes of the patient are and the only way that you can do that is

to actually talk to the person and know the person take time sometimes it takes a tremendous

amount of time to to let the person who's the patient or the victim to let them think through

and process and come up with the best decision for for how they want to be cared for and you can't

overstep bounds you know you you can't do it so you have to be really cautious you have to use

care you have to be compassionate you you can't just drop them off at the hospital and run

you have to stay with them and I love everything about this story and the way that Stuffy handled

that it tells me one of two things either either one he has a whole lot of common sense

which is possible very very possible or number two he's been around the block before and he's

done this he's done this probably multiple times and I don't know what the answer is I don't know

which one of that is maybe it's a combination of both but I thought he handled this exceptionally

well from start to finish the fact that he offered to call family members

because Dawn said I don't have a phone every time I get a phone it gets stolen

and Stuffy just very calmly said and he was never condescending ever

and he said well Dawn I have a phone he said who do you want me to call

and I just thought that was really cool because he's given him the choice it's

he's constantly put in the ball back in into Dawn's court and he's letting him take the ball

and tell Stuffy what to do with it

you know a lot of people they they want to come in and they're aggressive and they're like well

this is what you need this is what we're doing I don't think that's the right approach

you know unless somebody severely incapacitated and they literally cannot make any decisions

on their own that's a different story but when somebody is awake their alert

uh they're in their right mind they have to be the one to make the decisions now you can

you can try to convince them and that's what Stuffy did with the hospital he advocated for him

he didn't force him he just said dawn say yes please say yes please say that you want to go to

the hospital and he said you really need this right now you really need to be seen by a doctor

and when he framed it that way dawn said yes please

and that's what that's when he said I need to start loving myself

and I thought what what an aha moment

I mean it took the compassion of a complete stranger it took the compassion it took the care

the time all the things that Stuffy put into to dawn situation that's when he had an aha moment

and he was like holy cow I need to start loving myself more

you know I think that was the moment when he realized he just neglected himself for for years

and again it's easy to point fingers it's easy to judge people

but a lot of people don't they don't want to feel like they're a burden on somebody else

they don't want to become somebody else's problem and so a lot of us are wired that way I'm wired

that way a lot of us are wired that way and people stay it all the time they're like why don't you

ever ask for help I'm like because I just I know I know what it's like to be used I've been used

before I've I've had people take advantage of me at the expense of my family they don't they

there's some people who do not care that you have a family they really don't and it's unfortunate

there's some people who will take advantage of you I mean they could bleed you dry

and they'd be like where's the rest of your blood like I need I need more

you know there's some people who just don't care and they don't care that you have

little kids they don't care that you have a home life they don't know how how to keep boundaries

and so they just ask and ask and ask and and and demand and they get angry if you say no

they come absolutely unhinged now I had a guy show up at my house before he found out where I

lived I don't I to this day I don't know how this man found out where I lived but I was home

very very sick one day I mean I was I was uh I had a stomach virus that was not good

and uh I remember I was just so weak and I'd been throwing up and I heard the dogs barking

and uh it's like what the heck and I you know I walked out there we're going absolutely insane

and I see this guy like with his hands cupped and he's peaking into my windows and I'm like

holy cow that's ed and my heart just sank and I literally hid

okay and he was a violent man he was one that no matter what we did no matter how much we helped

he demanded that we do more and he threatened he had called the church before and threatened instead

he was going to come in and shoot the church up if we didn't help him out

you know and so there unfortunately are people like that unfortunately

and probably all of us have been on the receiving end where we've received

threats from people demands from people uh we've been taken advantage of by people

and and so probably a lot of us know what it's like to be taken advantage of and we don't even

want the perception that we're one of those people and so we'll do everything in our power

to avoid asking people for help and i'm telling you that that is one hundred percent

a fault of mine and i i refuse to ask anybody for help of any kind

and uh sometimes we just need to we need to ask for help

so i really think that's where dawn was and and i think he probably

had been to the point where he burned he might have burned some bridges

and he just didn't want to he didn't want to be a burden even with that money

he didn't want to take cash from somebody he said no take it back i don't want it

you know i i think he didn't want to feel like he was a burden on somebody

but the the the thing is and this is the important thing please hear me out

there's a time in life when we all need each other we all need a support system we all need

somebody who's gonna love us through whatever it is that we're going through if you think about

the worst moment in your life the the worst time in your life most likely you made it through

that because you had a support system whether it was a spouse or a parent or a friend

you made it through because somebody cared enough to walk you through whatever it was that you

were you were going through and that's no different for people who don't have a support system

and when you're living out in the streets i'm telling you your support system is is uh

uh very small very limited if nonexistent altogether so you need a support system you need

people to care for you you need you need money i mean that's another thing it's uh you know

people say it's all the time and it really bothers me why don't you just go get a job be responsible

like the rest of us and go out pull yourself up by the bootstraps and go get a job well

sometimes that's impossible to do look at dawn he he physically could not stand up he had

maggots coming off his legs you wouldn't know that he was wearing pants you wouldn't know that

what people see is is is a you know a quote bum sitting there with their cup out asking for money

what they don't see is underneath the pants are maggots literal maggots eating a man's flesh

did you hear him in the hospital he said that smell at your smell and is coming for my legs

he's like i'm so sorry he kept he kept apologizing he's like i'm so sorry that i stink

and he said it's it's my legs my legs are literally rotting

can you imagine can you imagine how embarrassing that is you imagine what he felt in that moment

thinking everybody's judging he's apologizing because his legs stink because they're

literally rotting off of his body now he didn't have an idea he didn't have money

every time he gets a phone his phone gets stolen you tell me how somebody's going to go out

show up for a job and not only show up for for an interview

but be able to impress somebody and be the candidate that they're going to hire you tell me how

that's going to happen and so the reality is that we need to get these myths out of our head

and realize sometimes people just need they just need help

they need us to to walk them through a very long agonizing process

it takes money it takes a lot of money it takes time it takes community it takes people who pray

i'm a firm firm firm believer in prayer i believe a lot of this stuff cannot happen without

prayer in fact Jesus talked about that you remember the story when his disciples couldn't cast

out demons there was this demon possessed child and the father said well your disciples tried

but they couldn't cast a demons out and Jesus was like oh my goodness he's like you of little faith

he's kind of like those disciples and he said quote this kind only comes out by prayer

I thought what a powerful reminder that even Jesus Christ the son of God turned to prayer as the

only method to exercise demons from a little child to bring healing to a little child that was the

only way that it was going to happen and Jesus knelt down and he prayed i am a firm firm believer in

prayer and a lot of times we we we want to like wave the wand get mad at the government we want

to protest we want to talk about government programs and how republicans are cutting programs

and democrats are overspending on programs right we get caught in these endless debates that never

go anywhere instead of just lifting a finger and stepping in and doing the right thing and i'm

telling you if we do that as a nation if we do that as individuals if we step up to the plate

and we do exactly what soft he did and we just trust we trust God that God's going to take that he's

going to he's going to put the message to the right people at the right time and raise the right

amount of money if we firmly believe that i believe it's going to happen every time i honest

the goodness believe that and that's the hidden lightness i the reason i believe it is because i

see it over and over and over and over again i have covered countless stories on the show

just like this where somebody start to go fund me and it goes absolutely wild i've seen it in my

own ministry i've seen where we've had impossible scenarios and i've not publicized this stuff i've

just shared it with with my own small church and somehow the money always shows up the people who

need to be there at the right place at the right time they always show up but we have to pray and

we have to act it doesn't happen by praying alone and it doesn't happen by acting alone we have to

pray and we have to move we have to put our feet into motion and actually step into the lives of

people folks that is the hidden lightness we all have the ability i hope the story inspires you

i pray that you go out and find somebody and and help today you can find more out about my show

and get all the latest podcasts if you go to the menu and have a gaysian bar at america out loud

dot news under our shows or schedule you'll be in the know there is a hidden lightness that shines

inside of all of us when so much darkness envelops the world remember that it doesn't take much

light to expose that darkness and to ultimately inspire other people join me in being a light