Same Kind of Different as Me: Chapter 18 Summary & Analysis

Ron continues his life story. In 1998, Deborah and Ron make their first visit to the Union Gospel Mission, driving through the tunnel that segregates the east side of Fort Worth from the rest of the city and the “haves from the […] have-nots.” As they are let in through a security gate, Ron wants to bolt, but Deborah tells him that she had a dream about the place, except that rather than its current dirty, worn-out appearance, it was brightly painted and covered with flowers. She believes it is a vision of it future.

Inside, Ron and Deborah meet the director, Don Shisler, as well as Chef Jim, an enthusiastic older man who went from a prestigious catering career to drug addiction and homelessness following a series of family tragedies. Now, he lives and works at the mission. Jim invites the Ron and Deborah to come every week to serve food to the homeless and to “Infect em with love!” Deborah is enthusiastic about the proposition, but for Ron, it is just a means to please his wife. Deborah promises that they will be there every Tuesday. That night, she dreams again about the Union Gospel Mission, this time about a man she believes will change the city.

Initially, contact with such bedraggled people depresses Ron, but Deborah immediately insists that they refer to the homeless as “God’s people.” Each day, the homeless people are only allowed to eat after listening to a roaring sermon from Brother Bill, an old preacher who is nearly blind. Unsurprisingly to Ron, none of the homeless never seem at all affected by Brother Bill’s sermonizing.

A thin black man in a clean suit warns Ron that, although Ron must think he’s doing them a favor, he could just as easily wind up homeless like the rest of them. Although Ron is not yet as invested as Deborah, the encounter causes him to consider that maybe his purpose is not to analyze or make judgments, but just to hear these people out and spend time with them. Deborah, meanwhile, “[falls] in love with everyone of them,” memorizing their faces and praying for them by name each night. After a couple weeks, noticing that the people at the back of the line receive less food, Ron and Deborah encourage Chef Jim to make a little extra. Despite how small of a gesture it is, Ron realizes it is the first time he himself has actually done anything to try and improve the lives of the homeless.

On their third week, a “huge, angry black man” throws a chair through the dining hall and swings his fists at whoever is near, shouting that he will kill whomever stole his shoes. The man frightens Ron, but Deborah excitedly grabs him by the arm and tells him that that is the man she saw in her dream, and that Ron needs to become friends with him. Ron is skeptical.

Ron and Deborah start watching for the man, who tends to be alone. While the others do not ignore him, they do keep a “respectful distance from him.” Often, he comes in as the mission is about to close its kitchen and asks for two plates of food, one for him and another supposedly for an old man he knows, though everyone assumes this is a lie. After a few months, Ron and Deborah finally learn his name is Denver, but he is “about as approachable as an electric cattle fence.”