Mitchell struggled with mental illness in his 20’s and began to use drugs, explains his mother, Kelly Phelps. Due to circumstances, Mitchell started living in a homeless camp near Memphis. But Kelly would seek him out every few days, bringing some fresh clothes and food. “My mom heart could not stand that he was living in the streets, so no matter how he behaved the last time we had seen each other, I still had to lay my eyes on him and make sure he was not starving or hurt.”
But one day she got word that Mitchell had lost his life, hit by a trash truck at 4:00 a.m. as he was walking down the middle of a street.
“My whole world was shattered to a thousand pieces that day. Right after he passed away, I would still find myself wanting to drive down there and look for him. It was heart break over-and-over when I would remember he is not there anymore. So, I went down to Sycamore View, to honor my son by feeding the homeless community.
To honor Mitchell, and the homeless he knew, Kelly wanted to do something special that God placed in her heart
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“That's one thing that I know my son used to love when he came home was to have cereal, because that's just not something that you normally get when you're living out on the streets. It's a difficult thing to have a bowl and a spoon and milk, and so I thought, well, this is a great opportunity to go down and take some food to them, have a bowl of cereal with them.
So, my intent was to go down on Saturday morning and give them bowls of cereal. I had other supplies, cereal bars, chips, Vienna sausages, trash bags, Ziploc bags, things to keep their clothes and bags from getting wet when it rains. And so, I made it all the way to Memphis and the last thing I had to buy was the milk. So, I went in the grocery store and my debit card was not working, and I'd left my cash at home. So, I'm thinking, well, surely I can get a grocery store in this area to donate two or three gallons of milk given what I was going to do. And so, three stores later, I had continually been told 'no.' I was sitting in the parking lot just feeling so defeated - crying, thinking, 'What am I going to do now? God, I need some help here.'
And it was a minute, and a Prairie Farms dairy truck pulled in the parking lot. It absolutely took my breath. I felt so humbled, and I just couldn't believe that the milk truck was pulling in the parking lot at the very moment that I needed it!
And I flagged him down and I was a sobbing mess. I know the driver had to think, ‘What is wrong with this crazy woman?’ But he smiled and he pulled his truck over and he said, give him just a minute. And he went in the back of his truck and he filled a whole milk crate up with individual milks and half gallons of milk. And I just absolutely knew that there was no other explanation other than God had intervened here."
Mission successful
"It allowed me to sit with them (the homeless) and spend a little time. I just opened the tailgate in my truck and set up a milk and cereal station, and I went around to all the different areas that I knew that were homeless, areas that people stayed at. I just asked them, were they hungry and they absolutely were.
I had one gentleman tell me it had been over a year and a half since he had a bowl of cereal.
I found many people that knew my son and all of them said the same thing: Mitchell was smart and funny and giving - he would always share what he had and wanted to help others. It very much did my heart good to know that no matter where my son went, he left a lasting impression. Before my son became mentally ill, he was a remarkable young man.”
Mitchell’s son gets the message
“And so when I shared with Ayden, 6, that I went down and fed the homeless where his dad had lived, I did not say anything about it being a miracle. I just was telling him the story and he said, ‘Gigi, God performed a miracle for you. Just like when those guys were on the boat and it was storming and God just stopped the storm, he performed a miracle and he saved them. He said, that's what God did for you, Gigi. He performed a miracle and he brought that milk truck there.’
Kelly’s grandson, Ayden, is fulfilling an amazing role in the family – and learning more and more about Jesus. More in our complete encouraging podcast interview just below:
