Why We Are Here

About the Book

-- Introduction – I was moved at the age of seventeen to act on the promptings of the Holy Spirit as my need for and the availability of a Living Jesus was made known to me. Kneeling by the side of my bed I committed everything I knew of myself to the very little I knew of Him. That exercise of a largely uninformed and trembling faith was enough for Him. The beginnings of a personal and life-long march with the Savior found traction then and there. Soon after that coming together, I was invited by some older men from my church to join them one Sunday evening for a trip to an old brick building deep within the bowels of Houston, Texas. Filled with the zeal of new found faith in Jesus Christ, I took them up on their offer. Without knowing what a rescue mission was, I found myself entering the Star of Hope Men’s Shelter having been assured that I would not be disappointed. I wasn’t. Our little band of missionaries arrived at 7:15PM for a season of worship with the men of the shelter. It was an oppressively muggy August evening and, as was the custom at the time, showers were subsequent to the chapel service. Upwards of 350 homeless men were packed into a relatively small space with less-than-optimal air circulation. The resulting odor was unlike anything I had ever before encountered. I immediately fell in love with it. To this day, more than four decades later, I can still pull up the fragrance. It was the aroma of despair and hopelessness. It was the scent of wasted lives and unbelief. It was the smell for which He had died. Witnessing the love of Jesus being so freely offered to and so eagerly embraced by those whom others have referred to as “the undeserving and the unworthy” gave me an even deeper dedication to Christ and to the utterly lost. He is their only hope as He is mine. By the mystery of His grace in my life, I today find myself directing that very same ministry which so greatly moved me as a young man. As I help shepherd in and through Star of Hope what is arguably the most diverse and dynamic flock imaginable, it is a glory to observe the Son of God display His great and lavish love for our men. He is faithful to meet them at their various points of impossibility, proving Himself to be both for them and able. Each and every day at the Star of Hope Men’s Development Center we are supplied front row seats to the Gospel drama as the fumes of daily sin and generational devastation rise up like incense to our Great High Priest. He draws the lowest to Himself, bathes them in forgiving grace, sets them up as a chosen generation, and then prepares them to be world-changers for His glory. Please enjoy these brief sketches of grace impacting the lives of men sought out by the Good Shepherd. Though their names have been changed to promote privacy and anonymity, their experiences of His eternal mercy are accurate and ongoing. My hope is that, like these men, we will be drawn always closer to His bleeding side, taking as our own His renewing grace, knowing for ourselves why we are here.

About the Author

Dick Druary serves as the Director of the Doris and Carloss Morris Men’s Development Center for Star of Hope Mission in Houston, Texas. An ordained Presbyterian who has pastored congregations in California, Alabama and Texas, he brings to bear a love for the timeless truths of God’s Word in conjunction with a shepherd’s sensitivity, allowing for the frailties, failings and fears of over 300 homeless men to be brought daily to the cross of Christ.