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The BnF Family and the Homeless Poor 141 than in the previous one. It is as if the homeless respondents had caught a new vision and were excited with the God of love whom they were coming to know and the possibility of loving former strangers with whom they were now sharing their lives. In a sense the Sanctuary residents and Program trainees had the harder test, being forced to live with others who were poor, mentally ill, or chemically dependent. As we saw from Daryl’s testimony, one couldn’t just “walk away” from relational difficulties as one could do “in the world.” This is not to say that the poor loved better than their providers; we don’t know that from our data. We only know that the situation and mode of expression were different for the two groups. We also know from events that have transpired that the familial relations that did evolve among the homeless were dependent on the social situation provided by BnF. The schism would drastically alter life for the homeless at BnF, where even those committed to the family were subject to diaspora. Some residents of the Sanctuary/Warehouse, like the BnF family members , had spiritually transformed and were trying to live out their respective versions of David’s vision to serve the poor. Both groups reflect a deep spirituality that enabled them to put flesh on their beliefs about the Kingdom . Members of both groups were touched by love and sought to share this love with others. The love found in both groups, however, had its own respective limitations in what Sorokin called extensity and intensity. As members moved away from their inner circle, the love demonstrated seemed to be less intense. The gray area noted by Phil, which divided the Sanctuary from the family business in the Warehouse, was one way to denote the social barrier that existed to limit interaction between the two groups. Most Sanctuary residents appeared to accept this gray area as a given in the ministry, working around it to get what they needed. Their relationships were primarily with others who were homeless and poor rather than with those on the other side of the unstated divide. Within the Sanctuary family there was another divide—between those who sought and accepted relational commitments and those who did not. Love was freely extended to others who were trying to move beyond a simple instrumental exchange, but its givers were critical of (and seemingly less loving toward) those who rejected the relational path. Sometimes interviewees would distinguish between the poor and addicts in talking about this divide—the poor, we were informed, are always grateful ; the addicts are perpetually dissatisfied and always wanting more. A “family” member was always grateful and sought to be an “extravagant 142 The BnF Family and the Homeless Poor giver.” The giving and receiving had social parameters that drew a line between the instrumental and relational clients. This observation offers another take on our survey finding that the poor were more critical of the homeless than were the BnF family members . It may well be that the poor were better aware of the relational problems they had with the “addicts” than the BnF family members who had comparatively little intimate ongoing contact with the poor and homeless. As we saw, Raymond was wary of the codependency that he observed in the Training Program and joined others in questioning the revolving door that continually brought in new people without having seen lasting changes in the ones who were leaving. Several other interviewees expressed their opinion that the addicts needed a “kick in the butt” rather than the coddling that BnF family often offered in the name of forgiveness. Despite the finding that Sanctuary respondents were less likely to report that walking in the supernatural, spirituality was important to them. The poor, most of whom were from black Baptist backgrounds— “Bapticostals,” they have been called—seemed to have worldview of God actively involved in their lives not unlike BnF’s neo-Pentecostals. They score lower on the particular Pentecostal distinctive trait of speaking in tongues; yet, as we have seen in this chapter, nearly all the men and women interviewed had a sense of God’s leading and speaking to them and they were even more likely to experience physical healing. Perhaps because they were older and financially destitute, the homeless were more likely to pray for spiritual healing for others and to receive spiritual healings...

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