Mission Possible: Feeding Bellies and Hearts in Austin

Last month, starting on a Sunday morning, I learned more about the intractability of homelessness in my home city, Austin, Texas. During three decades of “Church Under the Bridge” Sunday morning services, some of the faces have changed but the overall tragedy of lost lives has not.

During the last eight of those years, with permission from the Texas Department of Transportation, Austin churches have taken turns hosting the service not under an actual bridge but under an elevated section of Interstate 35 just east of downtown. At 9:15 am on May 5 under hazy skies and the constant rumble of traffic overhead, 25 men lined up for free tacos. Other men, alongside one woman wrapped in a head-to-toes sheet, rooted through a pile of used clothes.

One man had a skateboard under his arm. Another pushed a shopping cart overflowing with sleeping bags. Volunteers with Mission Possible, a nonprofit with offices a mile away, set up folding chairs, round tables, and speakers. At 9:30, the breakfast line totaled 50, including four women. No one shoved or pushed as taco distribution began: two for each person, plus a bottle of water or cup of coffee. A few people said thank you. Several muttered to themselves. One picked up and then tossed aside a pamphlet about Jesus. Another for five minutes said repeatedly, “Hail Mary, hail Mary.”

One woman asked, “Please, may I have four tacos?” She got them, along with a smile. At 9:45, a line at another table began moving. People picked up plastic bags containing lunch: cans with pull-tabs of sausage or beef ravioli, along with crackers, a bottle of water, and an energy bar. Hill Country Bible Church provided the food. Grace Covenant Church would do so the following week.

At 10 am, a pastor from Christ Church Anglican (located just half a dozen blocks south) preached about Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. Forty of the homeless people sat on folding chairs, some apparently listening, others dozing. When the sermon ended, most quickly walked off, sometimes dragging wagons with their belongings as volunteers picked up paper plates and cups, cigarette butts, and other debris.

Tim Pinson, who in 1992 founded Mission Possible, looked on and explained his limited expectations: With “food as the draw,” the sermon and a little personal interaction might encourage those in despair to aspire to something more. He offered as an example the life of Mike Featherstone, who eventually became a beloved Mission Possible staffer and preached at the services until his death two years ago.

Pinson, though, knows from hard experience that few among the long-term homeless will change. What does he do with that realization? He drove me to the Mission Possible buildings in East Austin, which in 2006 included a quickly-closed brothel and cost the organization $360,000. The area has gentrified: The property is now worth $12 million. Pinson — with a twinkle in his eyes — says it is both a blessing and a curse because some of the people Mission Possible most wants to help are now priced out of local housing.

Pinson hasn’t given up on anyone: Alcoholics Anonymous, Heroin Anonymous, and Narcotics Anonymous are among the groups that use Mission Possible meeting rooms. But Pinson, now 70 with a short beard and a tall smile, began his pastoring career with an emphasis on child evangelism, and he increasingly concentrates on ways to help children who may be poor or neglected. Without outside intervention, some are on their way to homelessness.

Pinson told me about Camp Nikos, a summer camp for at-risk children. Nikos now includes five week-long camps for kids and teens in March, June, and July, along with once-a-week Bible and art sessions. He showed me the crisis pregnancy center that Mission Possible houses — it saves lives and reaches mothers at a time they’re particularly searching for hope. Mike Featherstone changed when, in his own words, he felt “like God was reaching his finger out and tapping me on the head, telling me, ‘This is for you.'” Some pregnant women also gain that understanding.

Will others?

Pinson and his wife have four children, two born to them and two adopted, and nine grandchildren, all living in Washington State. That’s where Pinson now lives, with occasional visits to Austin. The Mission Possible Board notes that as he “prepares for retirement, we are prayerfully seeking a leader who will continue our mission of transforming lives and communities.” The job requires someone expecting not a victory parade but (to use Eugene Peterson’s expression) “long obedience in the same direction.”