Charles is Back

For those of you that haven't heard about Charles, I will tell you a little bit about him. Late one chilly November evening in 2006, Marc answered the door and there was a man in his early forties tossing a cigarette quickly out of sight. He reeked of cigarettes and wore a pair of soiled jeans and a hole-ridden sweat shirt. His work boots were no better for the chilly winter evenings. He was looking for some work. He wanted to trim our trees. Marc's first thoughts were to send him away and get back to his dinner, but that’s not what happened. So began our relationship with “Charles.”

Shortly after Charles arrived the next day to trim our trees, Heather and the girls came over for a visit. When Heather came in the house she seemed terribly concerned at what was going on outside. She said I had better go outside to check things out. To my disbelief, there was Charles putting the branches from our trees on a tarp and hauling them across our front lawn and tossing them into our neighbors backyard. It was hard to imagine that anyone would do such a thing! Charles couldn’t haul the branches away because he said his truck had broken down. And now, he was having trouble finishing the work in our yard because the chain saw he was using wasn’t working. What kind of mess had we gotten ourselves into? To make a long story short, we were able to work things out with Charles, but it wasn't an easy situation!

A few weeks after Charles trimmed our trees, he called Marc hoping that he could help him. He needed to finish another job he had not completed. Marc agreed. They loaded our truck with wood, ate lunch at Charles's favorite Mexican hangout, dropped off the wood at his home, and made some flyers for his business. He stayed in a garage behind a rental in a low income section of east Kennewick. That day we learned about his aspirations, the difficult conditions under which he lived, and began to develop a friendship. We also learned that Charles was blind in one eye and he has only one quarter of a normal person's vision in the other eye. He never complained! He actually seemed quite happy.

As time went by, Charles started coming over for dinner and going to church with us. We actually thought he was doing quite well. Then came the letter...it was from the county jail where Charles was now residing. He had been picked up for driving without a license... not to mention driving while legally blind! What was he thinking? In his letter he ask us if we could take him a Bible. I bought a large print Bible and Marc took it to the jail. Marc was not allowed to go into the jail, so he wasn't able to talk to Charles. A few days later, we received another letter from Charles thanking us for the Bible. That was the last time we heard from Charles until last weekend.

When Charles appeared last weekend on our doorstep, he was once again looking for work. He now has a friend (Eric) that helps him with his work and drives him around in an old beat up pick-up that looks like it is on its last leg. Yes, Charles did trim our trees again, but he has learned a lot more about trimming trees since his first attempt. However, Marc did volunteer to take the branches to the dump and I helped Charles trim and clean up the branches...never the less, the trees are trimmed!

Charles is still in great need of many things at this time, and I don't know what the future holds, but please pray that God will bless Charles along his journey.

Charles says, "He is not a very photogenic." But he did say it was okay to take this picture.