For the second year in a row, Michele Reckel is spending the five nights before Christmas sleeping in a tent outside in the cold. The associate pastor of The People’s Church, which ministers to people experiencing homelessness in Colorado Springs, Colorado, aims to raise $10,000 and collect warm clothes and other necessities.
Reckel also wants to raise awareness about people who “fall through the cracks,” saying most local churches give a cold shoulder to unhoused residents.
When Reckel slept outside for five freezing nights last December, she contracted pneumonia. But that—and her dislike for cold temperatures—hasn’t deterred her from this mission. “Even though I ended up getting sick, I felt like, thank you, Lord. I was able to help a lot of the homeless [people],” she told a reporter. “We collected so many things.”
Colorado Springs Minister Michele Reckel Has a Heart for People Experiencing Homelessness
Reckel, a wife and mother of six, said she’s “always lived her life” helping others, because “it’s what the Lord tells us to do.” About her efforts to assist unhoused people, she said her “heart goes out” to them because of what they face daily.
Many of these people “have mental illness or they have a lot of problems where they cannot stay still or they tend to disrupt the shelters,” she said, “so I understand why they can’t stay there.”
While Reckel camps out, she’s encouraging people to stop by with clothing, sleeping bags, blankets, nonperishable food, pet supplies, and money. Her family will be keeping watch over her and directing cars as people drive by to make donations.
During the daytime, Reckel will distribute the donations to people in need. Her five-day challenge will end on Christmas Day, with a brunch for unhoused residents.
“People are dying out there, and we need to help them,” Reckel said during last year’s challenge. “That’s someone’s children, someone’s dad, their mom…and that’s God’s children.”
When Reckel first partnered with Mike Maldonado, pastor of The People’s Church, to conduct homeless ministry, she warned him it can be “kind of dangerous.” It isn’t “like your little Saturday where you hand out lunch and pray,” she said. “There’s guns, there’s weapons, there’s prostitution, [some of them are] running from the cops.”
