The Manor | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: The Manor | Previous Challenge Entry
By Rick Gregory
03/10/25
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How do I process the scene before me that, if I'm not careful, drives my eyes closed, or forces me to look away, searing my conscience? Men are slouched in folding chairs outside a row of numbered doors, smoking, laughing, and drinking from bottles or cans peeking out of paper sacks. In one of the Handicapped parking spots, there's a small card table with too many men around it playing some kind of card game and another with two guys playing checkers with bottle caps.

Sitting in my truck, I scan the U-shaped building, with about 20 numbered doors along each leg of the "U." I'm parked inside the "U," where it's all broken and cracked asphalt: a not-quite-large-enough parking lot with the paint for parking spaces faded to nearly invisible. It's a two-story building with twin doors directly above each of those on the street level. Looking up, I see the entire railing on the 2nd floor covered with drying laundry, a wild mix of colored but bleached-out tattered shirts, shorts, and skirts.

That's when I notice that all the women are gathered on the 2nd-floor walkway. A few are sitting, but most are leaning over with their forearms on the railing. There is a bit of light chatter among them, but the majority simply stare out emptily over the shambles of broken maleness below them, unwilling or unable to confront the mess that their lives have become.
Suddenly, I realize that all the activity has stilled. The chatter has stopped. The card and checkers games have stalled. No one is laughing. Every eye locks onto mine. It reminds me that this drama plays out every Friday afternoon when our house church comes to what we'll call "The Manor." There are always some regulars. More often, though, we see new arrivals whose squinting eyes, tense shoulders, and fisted hands scream fear and distrust.

Every Friday, I feel the same butterflies of dread, anticipation, and hope as I step out of the truck, wondering how the time will go. Today, we bring bread, cereal, milk, and laundry soap. Even though the bread has an expired date and the milk is right on the expiration date, those from The Manor are grateful to receive it.

As is our custom, before we distribute the food and other things, we share a Bible story. Today's story is from John 8, the story of a woman caught in adultery. Because we're not "preaching at them" but instead just telling a story, the people are far more willing — even eager — to hear and participate.

Once I finish the story, I ask them to help me retell it. But today, I just get silence. I see nothing but heads down, eyes on the ground. Finally, after a couple of minutes, but what seems like an eternity, a woman on the balcony yells out, "That story can't be true! We've all been there — and no man ever treated us like that!" She is weeping, her tears forming brown rivulets through the dirt on her face. And then I notice that many of the other women are crying as well. So I ask a simple question, "But what if it was? What if it was true?"

Her breath catches, and she says hoarsely, softly, "If it was really true, I'd follow that man anywhere." The men step back and quietly watch as all the women come down from the balcony and gather around Sherry. She retells today's story and then tells them about the time He banished demons from the life of Mary Magdalene, a prostitute, who then became one of His closest followers.

Julie is her name. The one who yelled first from the balcony. Julie, the doubter, after talking more with Sherry, decides that that Man, Jesus, is indeed worth following. Julie kneels there on that broken asphalt, bows her head and gives herself to Him. Fully and completely. And then Sherry baptizes her into her new life in Christ right there in The Manor's pool.

Julie now lives in a new identity, confident in the reality that she's a new creation and child of God (2 Corinthians 5:17-20). She's also The Manor's new Ambassador for Jesus. And her transformed life is infecting every other person who calls The Manor home. So far, about half the women have followed her in her faith. It's a little slower for the men . . . But they're watching, and they're listening. Today, hope conquered dread.

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