No Easy Days

I was just outside walking my dog when he pulled up.

Scraggly beard. Long, unkept hair. Skinny. The kind of guy you’ve seen before out here—drifting, surviving, carrying more than he lets on.

He asked if I was the director.

I said yeah.

And then he just said, “I wanted to say thank you.”

His name wasn’t really Ray, but that’s what I’ll call him.

Turns out, he’d been staying down the road at another mission. No running water. No real setup. But he’d heard he could come up our way and take a shower. And for a guy who’d been drifting for a while, that meant something.

We got to talking. Found out we both had a military background—he was former MP, I had my own time in. That was enough to build a bridge. There’s something about shared service… you don’t have to explain as much.

I told him he was welcome to come to church if he wanted.

That Sunday, he showed up.

And then the next one.

And the next.

A little while later, he came back with a dog.

Carlos.

The dog had been dumped up the road at the Blanco Trading Post. Beaten up. One eye barely hanging on. Half blind. We’d all been feeding it here and there when it wandered near the mailbox.

Ray took him in.

Started caring for him like it was his own.

For a while, things were good.

He’d come down, shower, do laundry, help out around the campus. If there was work to be done, he was there. No complaints. No drama. Just a guy trying to get back on his feet.

Then one day he showed up different.

Jeep window smashed out. Dog limping—hit by a car. Ray himself looked like he’d been through it.

He said he’d been jumped up the road.

Said some men told him he wasn’t welcome there… told him to leave.

I didn’t know how much of it was exactly how it happened.

Out here, stories don’t always come to you clean.

But I could see the result.

His Jeep window was smashed out.

The dog had been hit.

And Ray looked like he’d taken the worst of it.

Whatever happened… it had shaken him.

The pastor at the other mission had seen the tension building. The confrontation had happened there, and with things escalating, he felt it was best—for Ray’s safety and for everyone else—that he move on. Not because he didn’t care, but because he didn’t want it turning into something worse.

So Ray came to us.

He asked if he could stay.

Just a couple days.

I told him 72 hours.

He had a little pop-up camper in a trailer. We had a spot up on the hill. I figured he could rest, get his bearings, then move on.

That night we fed him dinner.

He was calm. Grateful. Respectful.

Even asked if he could work to earn his keep.

I said sure.

He started tackling some of the overgrowth around campus—thick, stubborn vines and weeds that had taken over parts of the property and were nearly impossible to get rid of.

Most people take a swing at them and give up.

Ray didn’t.

He dug them out at the root, cleared areas we’d been fighting for a long time, and did a better job than most people ever have.

When the 72 hours came up, he asked if he could stay a little longer.

And honestly… it felt like he had earned it.

He had worked hard. Kept to himself. Caused no problems.

So we gave him a little more time—figuring maybe this was his chance to get back on his feet.

And for a couple weeks… everything seemed fine.

Then something shifted.

Not all at once. Just enough to notice.

He got quieter. More withdrawn.

Still working, but not connecting.

Then came the first incident.

One of the guys from the community—someone we all knew—said Ray had been lingering around the showers.

The man wasn’t a stranger. He was local. Just down on his luck.

He’d been trying to get his life back together, trying to stay sober, and for a while that meant sleeping in his pickup out by the gym. It wasn’t much, but it was a safe place.

So when he said something felt off, we took it seriously.

Things got heated. Voices raised. We stepped in, separated them, and tried to make sense of it.

Ray said he was just waiting for church after showering.

And honestly… that made sense.

So we let it go.

But then it happened again.

This time he got into it with someone in the showers. Started yelling. Complaining. Then it escalated.

He stormed off shouting things—racist things, angry things—about the Navajo people, about the land… things that just didn’t belong coming out of his mouth.

That’s when we knew something wasn’t right.

We started digging a little.

Trying to understand who we were dealing with.

And what we found didn’t match the guy we’d met.

Or maybe… it did. Just a different version.

Records showed he had lived a pretty normal life not long ago. Marriage. Stability.

Then something broke.

A messy divorce. Allegations. Arrests. One incident where he was jailed in Colorado, broke out, stole his Jeep from impound, and led police on what they called a low-speed chase.

It wasn’t just a rough patch.

This was a pattern.

So I went to talk to him.

And what I found wasn’t the same man.

He was spiraling.

Talking about the government being after him. The VA betraying him. Saying the Navajo people were evil… calling them skinwalkers.

It wasn’t anger anymore.

It was something deeper.

Something broken.

I told him he couldn’t stay.

Not because I didn’t care.

But because I had to protect the people here.

The kids. The families. The community.

Sometimes doing the right thing doesn’t feel like the right thing.

He packed up.

Left his camper.

Left his trailer.

Tied Carlos up near the office… and just drove off.

Didn’t even say goodbye.

We took care of the dog.

Someone brought him in, gave him a place to stay.

Ray started calling me every so often.

Checking in.

Letting me know where he was.

Then one day he called from El Paso.

Said he was either going to cross the border…

or kill himself.

I told him I was going to get him help.

Called some friends down there—guys I knew from my time stationed there.

They found him.

Got him to the VA.

And that was the last I ever heard from him.

I still think about him.

I still wonder what happened.

Was it drugs?

Mental illness?

Spiritual warfare?

All of it?

I don’t know.

What I do know is this—

He wasn’t just a problem.

He was a person.

A veteran.

A man who, at one point in his life, had everything together.

Until he didn’t.

And if I’m honest…

There’s a part of me that wishes I could’ve done more.

But there’s another part of me that knows—

You can’t save everyone.

And if you try, sometimes you end up hurting the people you were already called to protect.

That’s the tension nobody talks about.

Ministry isn’t just about open doors.

Sometimes it’s about knowing when to close them.

Even when it hurts.

Because not every story gets a clean ending.

And not every person gets saved the way we hoped they would.

“If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet.” — Matthew 10:14