It wasn’t meant for someone to live in, but it also wasn’t falling apart.

The shed was actually well built — solid walls, a real structure — the kind meant for storage, not shelter. At some point, a small wood-burning stove had been installed inside. The stovepipe ran through a crudely cut opening in the side of the building. It worked, more or less. As the weather began to turn cold, that stove was the only thing standing between discomfort and real danger.

There was no running water.

No electricity.

Just enough space to get by.

I didn’t find the shed by accident.

I didn’t stumble onto it while driving dirt roads. Maria called the mission. (Her name has been changed.)

She had gotten our number somehow — I never did learn exactly how — and when she called, she didn’t ask for much. She said she needed blankets. Food. Water. She also asked if we had any Bibles her kids could read.

There were six of them living in that shed.

Six people in a space roughly eight by ten feet.

When you hear something like that, your mind wants to push back. You look for context that might make it easier to accept. But there isn’t any. There’s no version of that math that works. This wasn’t a calling or a season of sacrifice. It was the result of a long chain of decisions, circumstances, and systems that had slowly narrowed her options until very few were left.

Ministry often starts like that — not with clarity, but with complexity.

When we arrived, the shed looked like a structure doing a job it was never designed to do. A makeshift porch had been added outside the door. Maria told us she had fallen from it not long before and broken her foot. Even getting in and out of the shed had become difficult.

A broken-down car sat nearby. She said someone had stolen the serpentine belt and pulled all the fuses out of it. Whether that was exactly what happened or not was hard to know. In places like this, explanations are often layered — part truth, part assumption, part survival story. What mattered was that the car didn’t run, and it wasn’t going to anytime soon.

They carried water in old plastic jugs. The lids were missing. Mold clung to the inside of more than one of them. You could tell they’d been used for a long time, rinsed when possible, reused when there was no alternative.

None of them had shoes on when they stepped outside.

Conversation wasn’t easy. At times, Maria’s words didn’t fully connect. Whether it was exhaustion, substance use, or the accumulated weight of life, it was hard to tell. Two of the children struggled to hear, which slowed everything down. You had to repeat yourself. Watch faces. Pay attention to what was missed. Nothing about the situation allowed for rushing.

What she asked for wasn’t unreasonable.

Blankets.

Food.

Water.

Bibles.

Not a house.

Not a miracle.

Just enough to make it through the cold nights ahead — and something for her children to read that pointed beyond their current reality.

We brought what we could. And we kept coming back.

Scripture tells us that God is “near to the brokenhearted” (Psalm 34:18). Not because every situation is noble. Not because every choice is right. But because brokenness — of people, families, and systems — is exactly where grace is needed most.

There are moments in ministry when you realize that fixing everything isn’t immediately possible. Some situations take time to unwind. Some lives move forward unevenly, one step at a time. But presence is still possible. Faithfulness is still required.

Grace doesn’t always arrive with answers. Sometimes it arrives quietly — through a phone number passed along, a request for blankets, a box of food, a Bible opened in a place not meant for living.

Those moments don’t resolve neatly.

They don’t fix everything.

But they matter.

And often, they are where redemption begins — even if the road ahead is still unclear.