side ventures (an ode to my husband).

David and a friend from church own several rental properties, which have been an interesting side venture over the last few years. David loves being a pastor but is also very interested in business and investing, so this is a good way for him to experiment and learn some skills.

As they started buying properties, we all read the book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, which we highly recommend. I was so moved by the stories in the book, by the battle many people in our country wage daily for stable, safe places to live.

I’m the kind of person who reads a book like that, feels my heart stirred, has several animated conversations, and writes a blog post. My husband is the kind of person who reads a book like that and gets up and does something about it. This is one of my favorite things about him, and what attracted me to him all those years ago.

From the time I met him in college, David has had at least one friend in prison whom he visits and writes letters to. He currently has friends who are on and off homeless or in and out of jail. One of them battles substance abuse and anger and currently treats him very poorly. David holds firm boundaries with this person, but forgives and loves and helps him again and again and again. He always offers another chance. He fights for the oppressed and the marginalized. He sees them.

David doesn’t advertise all of this about himself; it’s just who he is, the way he has quietly lived his life for the 16 years I’ve known him.

My husband has the gift of seeing people others don’t see. And he moves toward them.

Not only the poor, but maybe just the unpopular person. Or the unattractive. Or the shy. The person on the fringe. David is friends with such a motley crew of people (myself included), that are as diverse as the guy in the halfway house to the widow to the alcoholic to the well-dressed, successful businessmen. He tries to connect these people with one another when he can, because he knows the value of friendship with people very different than himself.

This is an incredible gift. It has shaped our whole family.

When I read Evicted, I wanted to do something to make a difference. I felt so helpless in the face of the enormity of the situation. David and his friend started buying properties as an investment, but they also asked themselves the question: “What if we have the opportunity to offer stable, safe rental homes for people who need them? What if we can be good, fair, even generous landlords in this community?”

I’ve loved watching the two of them do that.

I’d say 80% of the time, the rental properties run smoothly, with little turnover. There are people in each of the houses who have struggled to make rent on time, and they are given another chance. And most of the time they honor that and take care of their home and have a great relationship with their landlords.

However, sometimes it feels like this scheme crashes down around us. Why does it always seem like if something’s going to go wrong with one of the rentals, it happens at the worst possible time? We have some stories.

One that stands out is getting dressed up and leaving the house together on Date Night, when David suddenly announces to me, “I just need to make a quick stop at one of the rentals.” Hmmm.

We pull up in the driveway and I’m sitting in the car watching my husband have a yelling match with a man on the porch. And I hear David say, “Dude, stop selling crack on my property!!” This man was evicted for several reasons (selling drugs being one of them), and unbeknownst to David sneaked back in the house and was squatting in the house, conducting his business. I just sat in the car and tried to be invisible.

The most recent eviction involved David having to go to court, and it was just a sad, sad situation.

We had to explain to our kids, because they literally witnessed a man screaming curses at their father in the yard. This man started out great but then stopped paying rent and then kind of went off the deep end and starting accusing David of crazy things and trashed the house. The legal process of eviction is slow and so this man and his family lived in the house for months with no electricity or water. They had a small child.

When Judah heard about it he said, “I feel sorry for him.”

Our kids meet the renters from time to time, and stop by to do odd jobs with their dad. We try to be careful to always speak with respect and compassion about the renters, no matter what’s going on. This is a learning experience for us all.

I’ve had a chance to see the other side of the story in the book Evicted — the landlords’ side — and sometimes I think, Now I know why some of them are so unfair. It’s disillusioning to try to help people and just get burned again and again. Why would you put money into fixing the shower and the refrigerator in one of your properties, when someone is just going to quit paying rent and then trash it?

I actually had these thoughts several weeks ago, as I joined forces with David and his Dad to clean up one of the properties and get it ready for new renters. David had already gone twice to the house and done the worst of the clean up. I’ll spare you the details, except to say he came home each time with flea bites up his legs.

So I offered to go the third round and do a deep clean, and it was still really, really bad. I opened the fridge and immediately started gagging. I was furious. Furious at the renters. Furious at my husband for “dragging me into this scheme.” Mostly furious, I realized, because I just want to make things nice and clean and organized and pretty, and I can’t do that for this house. We simply can’t put money into totally remodeling a house in this area and get it back. We just have to do what we can.

I repented to David of my fury, and just asked the Lord to calm me down, and let this be one small way I can serve my community — like I said I wanted to do. I can’t remodel this kitchen, but I can scrub it and make it clean(er). I can remove shelves and drawers from that nasty refrigerator and drive them to my house to wash and bleach in the bathtub (the house was still without water). I can mop floors and wipe cabinets and pray for the family who was evicted, my heart so heavy.

And Amelie, ever our serving girl, dived in and offered to dry the washed shelves for me and wanted to come for an hour and help out. Her cheerful, serving spirit, changed mine. I thought with gratitude, She’s just like her dad.