Latest / Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News / A Christmas night MIRACLE: How one man saved a homeless stranger’s life

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A Christmas night MIRACLE: How one man saved a homeless stranger’s life · Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News

• 0:08
  You're listening to the Hidden Lightness on America Out Loud Talk Radio.
• 0:12
  I'm your host, Jimmy Hinton.
• 0:14
  There's a story that uh definitely caught my attention and is worth resharing here.
• 0:20
  And you won't find it on the media anywhere.
• 0:25
  I actually accidentally found this on social media.
• 0:29
  And uh, man, it made me cry.
• 0:32
  I'll admit it.
• 0:33
  I'm a grown man.
• 0:34
  I'll admit it.
• 0:36
  I cried.
• 0:37
  It touched my heart, and uh definitely worth talking about today.
• 0:44
  This story began on December 25th, 2025, just this last Christmas, literally on Christmas Day, there's a social media influencer.
• 0:58
  He goes by shot savant, and uh his real name is for short, uh Safi, he goes by Safi, uh, but his full name is Safiola, and uh Sophie got his camera out, and uh this is kind of where the controversy, I guess, uh, comes into this, and we'll talk about that in a little bit and kind of what my feelings are on that, but uh, but he was filming, and he saw this homeless man who was laying on the ground and it was pouring down rain, freezing cold, and this poor man was laying on his side and just groaning, and uh Safi walked over to him and and he's like, Hey, uh I we gotta get you out of the rain.
• 1:55
  What can I do for you?
• 1:56
  How can I help you?
• 1:57
  Can I get you a hotel room?
• 1:59
  And the man by uh the man's name is Don, by the way, the homeless man, and he could barely talk.
• 2:05
  I he was just wincing in pain, and you can hear it in the video.
• 2:09
  I'll link that in the in the show notes.
• 2:12
  It's a Facebook reel.
• 2:14
  Uh, but man, it's absolutely incredible.
• 2:18
  And Sophie was talking to him and got down on his knees, and you know, was really talking to him in a very sweet way.
• 2:27
  And uh and talking to him like he was a friend, and I really appreciate that because a lot of times people treat homeless people as if they're a project.
• 2:39
  And uh, you know, they kind of make a show of it, and uh they they they act, and you can just tell that they're putting on an act, and I am not a fan of that at all.
• 2:53
  You know, if you're gonna genuinely help somebody, just do it.
• 2:58
  And uh, even though he recorded uh, and he does talk about that.
• 3:03
  I'll I'll read his quote where he addresses that.
• 3:07
  But Stoffy did record it, but to me, it it it what it did is it really inspired me, and I hope it inspires you.
• 3:17
  And that's kind of that balance that we run here, right?
• 3:21
  With the social media influencers, and I've covered this plenty of times, but you have people like Jimmy Darts and Mr.
• 3:30
  Beast, and you know, on and on.
• 3:34
  You have very famous social media influencers, and they record these heartwarming incidences where they help people.
• 3:45
  Uh Victor the Great, he's another one.
• 3:48
  Uh, or Victor the Greatness, I guess.
• 3:52
  Uh, Victor the Boss.
• 3:54
  I think that's it.
• 3:55
  I get them all confused.
• 3:56
  There are so many, so many social media influencers now.
• 3:59
  Uh, but Victor is the one, I'd covered a story on him, where he's uh he's a recovering drug addict, and he goes around and and films every single encounter, but he finds homeless people who are addicted to drugs, and he offers them a free scholarship to get into rehab, but they have to accept it, they have to want it.
• 4:22
  And he he doesn't coerce them, he does not force them in any capacity, and he films it, he films every single one of these encounters, and he's one of those who films the good, the bad, and the ugly.
• 4:36
  So even for the failed quote-unquote failed uh stories where people relapse that he's helped out, he he's honest about it.
• 4:46
  He's very transparent.
• 4:48
  And he says, like, not everybody is gonna get clean, unfortunately, and that's just that's a risk that we have to take.
• 4:57
  Uh, but the alternative is to do nothing.
• 5:00
  So at any rate, there's kind of this balance that people have to run, and I get it, I understand it, because on the one hand you're filming somebody at their most vulnerable point, which is very, very invasive.
• 5:17
  I mean, very invasive.
• 5:19
  A lot of these people can't technically consent to being filmed because they're in a in a very bad vulnerable position.
• 5:30
  And the other side of that is that when people are filmed, when these things go viral, it does inspire many other people to step in and do to do acts of kindness.
• 5:47
  And so the question is, I guess it's a question for another another podcast for another day.
• 5:55
  Um, but the question is, is it is it worth filming?
• 6:03
  Is it worth possibly exploiting somebody who's at their most vulnerable state?
• 6:10
  Is it worth that?
• 6:13
  Is it worth possible embarrassment, even a possible lawsuit?
• 6:18
  Is it worth that to expose these people to show the kind-heartedness of these social media influencers to inspire other people?
• 6:30
  I don't have an answer for that.
• 6:32
  I uh I'm not really here to answer that question, but I do want to raise that concern.
• 6:38
  It's a valid concern.
• 6:39
  And again, we'll talk about this more as uh as a show unfolds because Safi did address this, and he addressed it very directly, and I thought very um transparently, and so that's a good thing.
• 6:56
  But at any rate, what happened was he had encountered Don, who was a homeless man who was laying on his side in the pouring down rain, and he physically couldn't get up.
• 7:09
  And Stoffy said, Man, um I gotta help you into my car.
• 7:14
  We gotta get you out of the rain.
• 7:16
  And right away, there was there was a bystander who walked over and he pulls out his wallet and he hands Safe a hundred dollars, and he was like, here, give this to him.
• 7:26
  He's like, Whatever it takes, I'm gonna help you put this man up in a hotel, we're gonna get a medical care, whatever it takes.
• 7:34
  And right off the bat, I'm gonna say this is what inspires other people.
• 7:40
  When we step in and we do the right thing, it inspires other people to step up and to act.
• 7:49
  Period.
• 7:52
  And there have been studies that were done on what's called the bystander effect, where people will tend to do what like-minded and and and like dressed people around them will do.
• 8:11
  There was something like two or three people had literally been stabbed, and they were bleeding out on the sidewalk, and the first person was dressed, I think, in a suit and tie, he literally stepped over top of the victim who was laying on the ground.
• 8:30
  And immediately after all these other bystanders, the people walking by, they did the same thing.
• 8:37
  They would step around or over top of this man who is literally bleeding out.
• 8:44
  And uh, so they did this study and they found that the psychology behind that is that people tend to um not react at all, like they don't react emotionally if the first person doesn't react because they just assume well, either somebody's faking it, or uh they're overreacting, or uh somebody will call 911, like whatever it is that's going on in their head, they tend to do what the other people, what the first set of people do are dressed like them, who are in the same kind of socioeconomic uh status as what they are, you tend to do the the similar thing is the people in front of you.
• 9:30
  And I know we can all argue all day long until we're blue in the face that well, I would never I would never fall prey to that.
• 9:37
  But what the researchers have found is that we don't really control it.
• 9:44
  That it it's just kind of hardwired into people.
• 9:49
  And so they say what you should do if you want to break out of the bystander effect uh as the first person.
• 10:00
  You know, you're the first person to kind of walk by somebody.
• 10:04
  They say, don't just yell out and say, hey, can somebody help?
• 10:09
  They said you specifically point to one individual and you say, you, right here, the lady in the in the blue dress.
• 10:17
  You call 911.
• 10:20
  You physically stop somebody and you call them out by their appearance or or whatever, you know, some kind of a marker, and you say, I need you to help me.
• 10:31
  All right.
• 10:32
  So the bystander effect is really, really powerful, but it works in the opposite direction.
• 10:40
  Where if we step in and we start helping, chances are much better that somebody else is going to stop and they're going to help.
• 10:49
  And that's exactly what happened when Safe started helping Don.
• 10:54
  There was a bystander who saw him on the ground talking to this homeless man, and right away he walked over.
• 11:00
  It caught his attention.
• 11:02
  And you can tell just kind of by the way the guy's dressed.
• 11:05
  You don't see him fully in the video, but you can kind of see from the waist down, you can see how he's dressed.
• 11:11
  And the guy doesn't look like he's uh hurting for money.
• 11:16
  And he pulls a hundred dollar bill out of his wallet, and he was happy to help.
• 11:21
  In fact, he insisted on it.
• 11:23
  And I thought that was really cool.
• 11:25
  And it's just a powerful reminder that there are good people around us, and we need to get this idea out of our head that people are selfish, that people uh don't want to help other people, that uh if anything happens to us, we're just on our own, and we'll just be left out there to you know, kind of hung to dry.
• 11:46
  And that's not the case.
• 11:49
  Now, that doesn't mean that's not ever the case.
• 11:53
  Because very clearly, Don had been there for a while.
• 11:58
  Don had been laying literally on the pavement in the pouring down rain with literally nothing to cover him except a light, it looked like a light coat, and his face was down in the in the uh water, very filthy, and he was just groaning, he was winting in pain.
• 12:25
  And uh, it's just it's heartbreaking.
• 12:27
  And you know, Safi said something too uh in the video that really really stuck out to me.
• 12:32
  He was like, you know, it's it's Christmas.
• 12:36
  He's like, this is not okay.
• 12:39
  And he said, I'm gonna take all the time, as much time as we need.
• 12:43
  He's like, what do you want me to do?
• 12:44
  What do you need me to do, Don?
• 12:46
  Do you need me to call 911?
• 12:48
  Do you need and he said, No, no, I don't, I don't want the police involved.
• 12:54
  And what that told me.
• 12:58
  Now I know I'm making I'm making an assumption here, but based on my experience.
• 13:04
  What that tells me is that Don doesn't trust the police.
• 13:10
  He we found out later on he didn't have a government identification.
• 13:15
  He didn't have a government ID card.
• 13:19
  He he literally had the clothes that were on his back, and that was it.
• 13:24
  Don has probably been robbed more times than we can count.
• 13:29
  He's probably been kicked out by the police more times than he can count.
• 13:35
  Told that he needs to move on, that he can't stay here, that um they don't care where he goes, he just can't stay here.
• 13:42
  You know, um, I'm sure that's a regular routine in his life.
• 13:47
  That's very, very typical of the homeless population.
• 13:53
  And so he he didn't want the police involved.
• 13:58
  And Safe was saying, Well, Don, what's what's wrong?
• 14:01
  What can I do for you?
• 14:02
  And he said, I have cellulitis.
• 14:05
  And again, you can barely make out what he's saying.
• 14:07
  I mean, he was weak.
• 14:08
  He was physically probably hours away from dying.
• 14:13
  And that's not an exaggeration.
• 14:17
  And Safe said, Well, what's what's wrong with you?
• 14:21
  And he said, I have cellulitis.
• 14:23
  I have open sores on my legs.
• 14:25
  I can't, I can't stand, I'm too weak.
• 14:28
  He had holes in his legs, and you can actually see it.
• 14:31
  He pulled the covers off when he was in the hospital, and I gotta tell you, that it'll break your heart.
• 14:39
  To know that people are living in these conditions.
• 14:43
  And there are people, unfortunately, who walk past homeless people all the time.
• 14:50
  Who don't give them any attention or any time of day, and it's absolutely heartbreaking.
• 14:55
  And we want to break that pattern.
• 14:57
  And that's part of why that's part of why we do the hidden lightness.
• 15:02
  Right?
• 15:02
  That's why we shine the light on positive stories like this.
• 15:06
  And this story does have a very, very positive outcome.
• 15:11
  But we shine a light on these stories.
• 15:13
  We let that hidden lightness come out into the open because we want that to inspire other people.
• 15:20
  We want people to step into action.
• 15:26
  It literally took the kindness and the boldness of one person to do something, to say something, to stop, to talk to a homeless man, to talk to Don, to insist.
• 15:41
  And he had to be persistent.
• 15:43
  You'll see it in the video.
• 15:44
  He had to be persistent.
• 15:46
  He's like, I'm not taking no for an answer.
• 15:49
  Because Don, at one point, I think he said he was like, just go away.
• 15:52
  I just leave me alone.
• 15:58
  And Safe said, I'm not gonna do that, Don.
• 16:01
  I I am not leaving your side.
• 16:06
  And a lot of people have this perception, this false perception that homeless people choose to be homeless, that they want to be homeless, that they don't want help.
• 16:17
  They want to be helpless, they want to milk the system or whatever it is.
• 16:23
  But I see it very differently.
• 16:24
  I saw a man who had absolutely no dignity left.
• 16:29
  And he said in the video, he said later on, he said, I need to learn to love myself.
• 16:35
  And Sophie's like, Yeah, you're you're right, Don.
• 16:38
  You deserve to be loved.
• 16:39
  You deserve to love yourself.
• 16:40
  You deserve to be loved by other people.
• 16:44
  You're worthy of that.
• 16:46
  And he meant it.
• 16:49
  And uh it's just uh it really, really made me it made me tear up.
• 16:54
  I mean, it's a very, very emotional encounter.
• 16:58
  That's so, so inspiring.
• 16:59
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• 17:00
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• 19:38
  From Safe, he's the social media influencer who met a homeless man on Christmas Day.
• 19:44
  He had the the wherewithal and the compassion, and uh, you know, this truly is a story about loving your neighbor.
• 19:52
  He had the compassion to take this man who was lying down in the rain, pouring down rain, freezing cold.
• 20:00
  Uh wincing in pain and eventually he convinced them that he needed to go to the hospital.
• 20:05
  And so Safi drove him to the hospital.
• 20:08
  He called ahead so that nurses would be waiting outside.
• 20:11
  They took him in and they started to care for him.
• 20:14
  He had severe cellulitis.
• 20:18
  And I want you to listen to the exchange in the hospital.
• 20:22
  This is just moments after Safi took him there.
• 20:25
  And I want you to hear this encounter.
• 20:27
  Now it's really hard to hear what Don says because he's barely audible.
• 20:32
  He was in such pain, he couldn't even lift his head.
• 20:36
  He was so weak.
• 20:37
  But I want you to hear the compassion in Safi's voice.
• 20:41
  I want you to hear what he says to him.
• 20:44
  What's wrong with your leg, Don?
• 20:48
  It's been tough.
• 20:51
  Don't ever be too hard on yourself, Don.
• 20:54
  You deserve these two lovely, bro.
• 21:05
  Anybody show up for you?
• 21:08
  You're not doing very well, Don.
• 21:12
  This is really Don.
• 21:18
  I'm gonna leave you with them, okay?
• 21:22
  I remember, man.
• 21:23
  I didn't know you were this bad.
• 21:27
  Oh, these are lovely.
• 21:29
  I should have got one of these guys.
• 21:31
  I'm thinking about getting you an electric scooter.
• 21:33
  How fast you would have.
• 21:36
  Hi, everyone.
• 21:37
  I am Donald's brother, and I just wanted to take this moment to thank each of you.
• 21:43
  Our family is deeply deeply grateful for your overflowing loving kindness that you have shown.
• 21:51
  I especially want to thank Safi.
• 21:54
  A stranger, a beautiful stranger, who chose to see my brother Donald as a real human being who needed support in a critical moment.
• 22:04
  Quick update on Donald.
• 22:06
  He is doing well and he's recovering.
• 22:08
  He wishes he could make this video himself.
• 22:11
  But he's in a lot of pain right now.
• 22:13
  And so we are taking it day by day.
• 22:16
  We are staying close to him and standing by his side through this long road back to full health.
• 22:24
  All right.
• 22:25
  So it's uh it's pretty cool.
• 22:28
  Pretty pretty powerful.
• 22:31
  And uh, you know, you heard him say, you're not in good shape, you're not doing good, Don.
• 22:37
  I said, No, I'm not.
• 22:40
  And uh I don't know if you heard that.
• 22:42
  He uh later on, you know, after after he was alert, he was awake, uh, he pulled the cover off and showed his legs, and they just they were so destroyed.
• 22:53
  And he said, they told me that I had maggots in my legs when he came in, he had maggots.
• 23:00
  I mean, can you imagine?
• 23:02
  Can you imagine living in those conditions?
• 23:05
  Being in that much pain, you have maggots on your legs, and you don't even know it because you're you're so weak.
• 23:13
  That's the shape that Donald was in.
• 23:18
  And his brother was so grateful.
• 23:21
  He's like, I'm just I'm so incredibly thankful to people.
• 23:25
  By the way, 115,000 has been raised since Safi posted that.
• 23:33
  He started to go fund me.
• 23:35
  115,000 raised.
• 23:40
  That's incredible.
• 23:41
  And this is what I'm talking about.
• 23:42
  I I can't ever overstate the kindness of other people.
• 23:49
  And had people not been aware of this, and this is where we get into this tricky um this business of filming people and and and people being stuck at their most vulnerable uh place in life and filming that and putting that on full display for the world to see.
• 24:06
  I man, I hesitate.
• 24:09
  I've never done it.
• 24:11
  I've never done that before, and I hesitate.
• 24:16
  You know, I I went to Haiti back several years ago, and I took pictures and you know, uh, nothing, nothing too graphic or anything, but I I uh you just see poverty and pain all around you, suffering, and I was very hesitant to even post pretty benign pictures because to me it felt like an invasion of their privacy, they didn't ask to be on film, they didn't ask to have pictures taken of them, and sometimes I can feel pretty spammy, and you're like, oh, well, look what you know, look what I did, and I don't ever want to give that impression.
• 25:05
  So there's this fine line that you really have to follow, and it's tricky, it's tough.
• 25:10
  I mean, there's no way around that.
• 25:14
  But when you have the courage to post, you know, the other side of that is when people see that other people are suffering, they want to step in and they want to help.
• 25:28
  And this is a case in point.
• 25:30
  This is not anywhere on the media.
• 25:32
  To my knowledge, there's not even a local station or local media outlet anywhere that covered this story.
• 25:39
  I I can't find a single one.
• 25:42
  I can only find this on social media, and that's the case for a lot of these stories.
• 25:47
  A lot of these viral stories will never be shared, they'll never be made public on the media, be it local or mainstream media.
• 26:00
  And and so the question is how do we spread the word?
• 26:05
  How do we how do we become a network as a nation?
• 26:11
  How do we become united and sharing information where we're doing it in a sensitive way, but we're getting word out there because I can tell you Safe could not do this on his own.
• 26:22
  There's no way that he was gonna raise 100,000 on his own, 115,000 to cover medical expenses and to get Safi off the streets.
• 26:32
  I mean, uh, to get Don off the streets.
• 26:34
  There's no way that Safe could have done that on his own.
• 26:38
  He needed a community of people, and the only way to do that, unfortunately, the only way to do that is to film it because video moves people.
• 26:52
  So he filmed the encounter, and I'm gonna read this exchange that he had because I think it's uh it's pretty powerful.
• 26:59
  Uh he posted this on uh March 6th, so just recently, and he did a post and he said, We did it.
• 27:12
  We changed the path of a stranger's life with 110,000.
• 27:16
  Now it's 115,000.
• 27:19
  Thank you for everyone who donated his story.
• 27:23
  Hashtag Donger.
• 27:27
  All right, and then he put Stoffi put this in the in the comments.
• 27:34
  He pinned this comment.
• 27:35
  He said, I I just wanted to share my thoughts on some of the comments.
• 27:41
  Don really thinks highly of his mother.
• 27:44
  As far as I know, she was the one who showed up for him the most.
• 27:48
  Don didn't like being on camera, and he didn't really have a choice in the matter.
• 27:54
  That goes back to what I was talking about.
• 27:56
  You know, uh, in that moment, when somebody's that vulnerable, they can't consent to being on film.
• 28:05
  And sofie acknowledges that.
• 28:07
  He's like, he didn't like being on camera, he did he didn't have a choice in the matter.
• 28:12
  He said, We found him in a vulnerable situation, and I never meant to hurt him, but help him by organizing to go fund me to raise money.
• 28:24
  In other words, my intention was not to hurt him, my intention was to help him and to start a go fund me and to raise money for him.
• 28:32
  So Safe goes on to say his story is complicated, and he has deeper scars that I have no right to share because it's not my place, but he loves his mom and his family does care for him.
• 28:46
  He didn't have a bank account or ID.
• 28:50
  So an immediate family member was needed to accept the money for him.
• 28:55
  His brother wanted to speak on his behalf because he was in extreme pain and checked into a hospital.
• 29:02
  The brother is not getting money at all.
• 29:05
  The money is legally Don's, and he is going to need it for treatment.
• 29:11
  If it's right or wrong, Don needs a support system during this time.
• 29:16
  He can't do this alone.
• 29:18
  Try not to get sucked into conspiracies or gossip.
• 29:22
  The truth is Don wanted this to happen this way.
• 29:26
  All right, so I thought that was pretty powerful and uh transparent.
• 29:32
  You know, he he admitted that Don not only didn't ask to be filmed, he didn't really like being filmed.
• 29:39
  Uh who would like being filmed in that vulnerable of a situation where you're wincing in pain?
• 29:50
  And you're laying face down on the dirty, grimy pavement as it's pouring down rain.
• 29:58
  Who who who in the world would want?
• 30:00
  That video of yourself.
• 30:02
  That's the image that the world sees.
• 30:05
  Who would want that out there?
• 30:09
  I don't think any of us would want that picture, that image of us out in the public for millions of people to see.
• 30:19
  But there's another side of that story.
• 30:23
  Don knew that that was the only way.
• 30:26
  If his story wasn't out there, if people didn't know how dire the situation was.
• 30:32
  Don wouldn't have gotten help.
• 30:35
  And so Don was incredibly grateful, and that's why he said the truth is Don wanted this to happen this way.
• 30:43
  He didn't like it.
• 30:44
  He didn't like being on film.
• 30:47
  But Don wanted it to happen this way.
• 30:51
  And I I believe, I really truly believe that wholeheartedly.
• 30:56
  I don't think Safi's just saying that.
• 30:57
  I don't think he's trying to pacify his uh followers.
• 31:02
  I think he legitimately, legitimately Don is so grateful.
• 31:08
  And he understands there was no other way for this to happen.
• 31:12
  And so that's the tension that we feel, right?
• 31:15
  That's the tension that social media influencers feel and the fact that they're getting paid.
• 31:23
  Because they have a following, uh, I'm pretty sure that his channel is monetized.
• 31:31
  And so Safi is most likely, I don't know for sure, but he's most likely monetized, and he's making money off of views of these videos.
• 31:43
  And I gotta say, I don't have a problem with that as long as somebody is doing it for sincere reasons.
• 31:53
  And I can tell by the way he approached Don.
• 31:56
  By the way, he's stuck by his side.
• 31:58
  By the way, that it was Christmas Day, and I assume Safi has his own family.
• 32:05
  Yeah, he sacrificed time with his family to go to the hospital.
• 32:09
  I don't know if any of you have ever been in a hospital in an ER, but if you're quick in and quick out, uh you met the holy grail of hospitals that uh, you know, the unicorn that I've never I've never seen before.
• 32:25
  Anytime I bring somebody to the ER, I'm there a minimum, minimum of four to five hours.
• 32:32
  Minimum.
• 32:35
  Usually a lot longer.
• 32:39
  You know, Safi was in this for the long haul, and uh he loaded him up in his own personal car.
• 32:46
  He uh, you know, he he did all the right things.
• 32:50
  He took him to the hospital, he insisted.
• 32:53
  And when the nurse came out in the video, the nurse came out and she said, uh, what's what's going on here?
• 32:58
  She's like, Are you an Uber driver?
• 33:01
  Like, what happened?
• 33:02
  And he said, No, I just I saw him lying down at the gas station.
• 33:08
  And he's like, it's cold, it's pouring down rain, and and and it's Christmas.
• 33:12
  And I couldn't just leave him there.
• 33:14
  And the nurse, she kind of gave a nervous laugh, and she said, Well, I can't take him unless he consents.
• 33:22
  He has to want to be treated.
• 33:26
  And so Safe said, Don, say yes.
• 33:30
  You need to be seen.
• 33:32
  You need to be treated.
• 33:33
  You deserve this.
• 33:35
  You deserve to be seen by a doctor.
• 33:39
  And you can hear Don, he kind of quietly says yes.
• 33:42
  He said, Okay.
• 33:46
  And that's when uh, you know, that exchange happened where Don said, I need to start loving myself.
• 33:55
  And Safi's like, you're right.
• 33:57
  You deserve to love yourself.
• 34:00
  You need to love yourself.
• 34:03
  But what happened, you know, it it was really hard to hear, and uh, you have to watch a couple other videos to kind of get the full story, but Don was a barber.
• 34:13
  He owned his own shop.
• 34:15
  You know, he was a very successful barber, and he said that standing on his feet all day long.
• 34:22
  Uh, he started to develop cellulitis, and it got so bad because he neglected it.
• 34:28
  It got so bad that um he was not able to work anymore.
• 34:34
  Then he lost his shop, and then, you know, the rest, I guess, as they say, the the writing was on the wall, and the rest was history.
• 34:42
  He lost his his barber shop, which means he lost his profession, he lost his source of his only source of income, he lost his home.
• 34:54
  And I know one of the criticisms, I I read some of the comments, and people are like, well, why didn't his family just step in and help?
• 35:02
  That's making a whole lot of assumptions.
• 35:07
  You know, I know plenty of people who are really stuck.
• 35:12
  They're in a bad place.
• 35:15
  And there's not enough money in the family for them to be able to help.
• 35:20
  They do what they can.
• 35:24
  But you know, that was one of the questions.
• 35:26
  Sophie, he's like, well, if if you talk to your mom, why is she not taking you in?
• 35:35
  And he said, because she's caring for my grandmother, and I can't, she can't risk infection.
• 35:41
  I can't infect my grandma, she's too vulnerable.
• 35:46
  You know, and and it's so wrong of us to judge where people are coming from, but we do it all the time.
• 35:54
  You know, people tend to point fingers and they're like, well, you know, that shame on his family for not taking them in.
• 36:01
  How could that how could they watch their family member be homeless living out in the street, barely making it?
• 36:09
  And they're living high on the hog, and you know, like people come to all these assumptions.
• 36:14
  But as you listen to the story unfold, Don was saying, I don't have a phone.
• 36:18
  I, you know, I I can't contact my family.
• 36:22
  He said, My phone keeps getting stolen.
• 36:25
  Every time I get a phone, it gets stolen.
• 36:28
  And that's what I mean.
• 36:29
  I think that's part of why he didn't want the police involved because he's just so used to getting taken advantage of.
• 36:36
  Or to be kicked out of places and told that he can't sleep certain places.
• 36:42
  So what homeless people do is they learn to survive.
• 36:45
  And they learn to put up walls.
• 36:47
  They're professionals at putting up walls.
• 36:51
  And keeping everybody, they don't trust anybody.
• 36:53
  They keep everybody at a distance.
• 36:56
  And uh it's just sad.
• 36:57
  It's it's really, really tough.
• 36:59
  It's a tough life.
• 37:02
  And almost nobody chooses to be homeless.
• 37:09
  It's a tough, tough life.
• 37:12
  It's very difficult.
• 37:13
  And uh, I hope the stories like this really inspire us to open our eyes to the people who are out on the streets because they're all around us.
• 37:22
  We're coming up on another break here.
• 37:24
  All of our shows do go to podcast the next day after the broadcast is heard on Talk Radio.
• 37:29
  You can hear them on Spotify, Stitcher, Pandora, iHeart Podcast, Apple Podcasts, many, many more.
• 37:34
  Be sure to share it, subscribe, rate the show, all that good stuff, and visit AmericaOutloud.news, browse the store, use the code out loud for 20% off.
• 37:45
  We'll be right back.
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• 39:14
  Again, there's a story of Don.
• 39:17
  Don is the homeless man who had severe cellulitis and was I think on the verge of death.
• 39:25
  I think he was that weak.
• 39:26
  I think he was that sick.
• 39:29
  And there was a thoughtful social media influencer by the name of Safi.
• 39:36
  And Safe saw him lying on the ground in the rain in the cold on Christmas Day.
• 39:41
  I mean, it's uh quite honestly the worst possible scenario for Don.
• 39:47
  And Safi saw him not as a homeless person, not as uh somebody who could have been tweaked out on drugs.
• 39:57
  He never treated him that way.
• 40:00
  He saw him as an individual, a human being who was suffering.
• 40:05
  And he decided to do something about it.
• 40:07
  He stepped into action immediately.
• 40:10
  And he started to comfort him, first of all, with words.
• 40:15
  And then he asked him what he needed.
• 40:17
  He asked him how he could help.
• 40:19
  Then he offered to put him up in a hotel.
• 40:21
  He actually called multiple hotels.
• 40:24
  And because it was Christmas night, they were all full.
• 40:29
  And another bystander had stepped in and uh was really generous, handed a hundred dollar bill, and insisted that Don take the money.
• 40:40
  And Don kept refusing it.
• 40:42
  And this other stranger said, no, you're you need the money.
• 40:46
  Please, please take the money.
• 40:48
  And I just thought that was really cool.
• 40:50
  And the the other bystander said, you know, we're going to do whatever it takes.
• 40:54
  He said, we're in this now.
• 40:56
  In other words, we're committed.
• 41:00
  And that's one of the important things about stepping in to help somebody.
• 41:04
  When you first check on somebody, you better be prepared to be committed.
• 41:12
  And our culture teaches us that things should be instant, that we should be able to get help, snap our fingers, hire somebody to do it, you know, whatever.
• 41:23
  And we want to be minimally involved a lot of the times.
• 41:27
  And it just doesn't work that way.
• 41:31
  And so that really resonated with me.
• 41:33
  When this person said, well, we're we're in it now.
• 41:37
  You know, we're committed.
• 41:40
  I thought, yeah, you you are committed.
• 41:44
  And when you've when you help people, especially if medical care is needed.
• 41:50
  That's not something that you can just abandon somebody and brush them off on somebody else.
• 41:54
  You've got to be committed.
• 41:57
  You have to be willing to stand with them, sit with them, pray with them, cry with them, talk with them, advocate for them, and on and on and on it goes.
• 42:08
  Because a lot of times when somebody's in that bad of medical condition, they can't advocate for themselves at the hospital.
• 42:14
  And you hear that in this video.
• 42:16
  I think that's why this video resonated with me so much because I've been in these positions.
• 42:21
  And I've seen how important it is to advocate for other people.
• 42:31
  Sometimes be a little bit aggressive.
• 42:33
  You have to ask nurses and doctors the right questions.
• 42:37
  You have to communicate exceptionally well.
• 42:40
  Sometimes you have to tell them what the wishes of the patient are.
• 42:45
  And the only way that you can do that is to actually talk to the person and know the person.
• 42:50
  Take time.
• 42:51
  Sometimes it takes a tremendous amount of time to let the person who's the patient or the victim to let them think through and process and come up with the best decision for how they want to be cared for.
• 43:08
  And you can't overstep bounds.
• 43:14
  So you have to be really cautious.
• 43:16
  You have to use care.
• 43:17
  You have to be compassionate.
• 43:23
  You have to stay with them.
• 43:27
  And I love everything about this story.
• 43:29
  And the way that Staffi handled that, it tells me one of two things.
• 43:33
  Either, either one, he has a whole lot of common sense, which is possible.
• 43:39
  Very, very possible.
• 43:41
  Or number two, he's been around the block before and he's done this.
• 43:45
  He's done this probably multiple times.
• 43:48
  And I don't know what the answer is.
• 43:51
  I don't know which one of that is.
• 43:54
  Maybe it's a combination of both.
• 43:56
  But I thought he handled this exceptionally well from start to finish.
• 44:02
  The fact that he offered to call family members.
• 44:08
  Every time I get a phone, it gets stolen.
• 44:11
  And Safi just very calmly said, and he was never condescending, ever.
• 44:16
  And he said, Well, Don, I have a phone.
• 44:19
  He said, Who do you want me to call?
• 44:23
  And I just thought that was really cool because he's given him the choice.
• 44:26
  It's he's constantly putting the ball back in to Don's court.
• 44:34
  And he's letting him take the ball and tell Safi what to do with it.
• 44:40
  You know, a lot of people, they they want to come in and they're aggressive and they're like, well, this is what you need.
• 44:45
  This is what we're doing.
• 44:47
  I don't think that's the right approach.
• 44:50
  You know, unless somebody's severely incapacitated, and they literally cannot make any decisions on their own.
• 44:59
  That's a different story.
• 45:02
  But when somebody is awake, they're alert, uh, they're in their right mind, they have to be the one to make the decisions.
• 45:10
  Now you can you can try to convince them, and that's what Sophie did with the hospital.
• 45:16
  He advocated for them.
• 45:18
  He didn't force him.
• 45:21
  He just said, Don, say yes.
• 45:23
  Please say yes.
• 45:25
  Please say that you want to go to the hospital.
• 45:29
  He said, You really need this right now.
• 45:31
  You really need to be seen by a doctor.
• 45:34
  And when he framed it that way, Don said, yes, please.
• 45:40
  And that's when that's when he said, I need to start loving myself.
• 45:45
  And I thought, what an aha moment.
• 45:50
  I mean, it took the compassion of a complete stranger.
• 45:54
  It took the compassion, it took the care, uh, the time, all the things that Sophie put into to Don's situation.
• 46:01
  That's when he had an aha moment, and he was like, Holy cow.
• 46:07
  I need to start loving myself more.
• 46:11
  You know, I think that was the moment when he realized he just had neglected himself for for years.
• 46:20
  And again, it's easy to point fingers, it's easy to judge people.
• 46:25
  But a lot of people don't, they don't want to feel like they're a burden on somebody else.
• 46:32
  They don't want to become somebody else's problem.
• 46:36
  And so a lot of us are wired that way.
• 46:37
  I'm wired that way.
• 46:38
  A lot of us are wired that way, and people say it all the time.
• 46:41
  They're like, why don't you ever ask for help?
• 46:44
  I'm like, because I just I know I know what it's like to be used.
• 46:50
  I've been used before.
• 46:53
  I've I've had people take advantage of me at the expense of my family.
• 46:58
  They don't, they there are some people who do not care that you have a family.
• 47:02
  They really don't.
• 47:03
  And it's unfortunate.
• 47:05
  There are some people who will take advantage of you.
• 47:09
  I mean, they could bleed you dry, and they'd be like, where's the rest of your blood?
• 47:15
  Like, I need I need more.
• 47:18
  You know, there are some people who just don't care, and they don't care that you have little kids.
• 47:23
  They don't care that you have a home life.
• 47:24
  They don't know how to keep boundaries.
• 47:28
  And so they just ask and ask and ask and and and demand, and they get angry if you say no, they come absolutely unhinged.
• 47:38
  Now, I had a guy show up at my house before.
• 47:40
  He found out where I lived.
• 47:42
  I don't I to this day, I don't know how this man found out where I lived.
• 47:45
  But I was home very, very sick one day.
• 47:49
  I mean, I was I was uh I had a stomach virus that was not good.
• 47:57
  And uh I remember I was just so weak, and I'd been throwing up, and I heard the dogs bark, and uh, what the heck?
• 48:08
  And I, you know, I walked out, they were going absolutely insane.
• 48:12
  And I see this guy like with his hands cups, and he's peeking into my windows, and I'm like, holy cow, that's Ed.
• 48:22
  And my heart just sank, and I literally hid.
• 48:27
  And he was a violent man.
• 48:30
  He was one that no matter what we did, no matter how much we helped, he demanded that we do more, and he threatened.
• 48:37
  He had called the church before and threatened instead he was gonna come in and shoot the church up if we didn't help him out.
• 48:47
  You know, and so there unfortunately are people like that, unfortunately.
• 48:53
  And probably all of us have been on the receiving end where we've received threats from people, demands from people.
• 49:01
  Uh, we've been taken advantage of by people.
• 49:04
  And and so probably a lot of us know what it's like to be taken advantage of, and we don't even want the perception that we're one of those people.
• 49:14
  So we'll do everything in our power to avoid asking people for help.
• 49:20
  And I'm telling you, that that is 100% a fault of mine.
• 49:26
  And I've uh I refuse to ask anybody for help of any kind.
• 49:33
  And uh sometimes we just need to.
• 49:36
  We need to ask for help.
• 49:38
  So I really think that's where Don was.
• 49:40
  And and I think he probably had been to the point where he burned, he might have burned some bridges.
• 49:49
  And he just didn't want to, he didn't want to be burdened, even with that money.
• 49:52
  He didn't want to take cash from somebody.
• 49:55
  He said, No, take it back.
• 49:57
  I don't want it.
• 50:00
  You know, I think he didn't want to feel like he was a burden on somebody.
• 50:08
  But the thing is, and this is the important thing.
• 50:14
  Please hear me out.
• 50:16
  There's a time in life when we all need each other.
• 50:21
  We all need a support system.
• 50:23
  We all need somebody who's going to love us through whatever it is that we're going through.
• 50:28
  If you think about the worst moment in your life, the worst time in your life.
• 50:34
  Most likely you made it through that because you had a support system.
• 50:39
  Whether it was a spouse or a parent or a friend, you made it through because somebody cared enough to walk you through whatever it was that you were you were going through.
• 50:51
  And that's no different for people who don't have a support system.
• 50:57
  And when you're living out in the streets, I'm telling you, your support system is uh very small, very limited, if non-existent altogether.
• 51:09
  So you need a support system.
• 51:10
  You need people to care for you.
• 51:12
  You need you need money.
• 51:14
  I mean, that's another thing.
• 51:16
  It's uh, you know, people say this all the time, and it really bothers me.
• 51:21
  Why don't you just go get a job, be responsible like the rest of us and go out, pull yourself up by the bootstraps and go get a job.
• 51:28
  Well, sometimes that's impossible to do.
• 51:34
  Look at Don.
• 51:34
  He physically could not stand up.
• 51:38
  He had maggots coming off his legs.
• 51:41
  You wouldn't know that.
• 51:42
  He was wearing pants.
• 51:45
  You wouldn't know that.
• 51:48
  What people see is is a you know, a quote, bum sitting there with their cup out asking for money.
• 51:57
  What they don't see is underneath the pants are maggots, literal maggots eating a man's flesh.
• 52:07
  Did you hear him in the hospital?
• 52:09
  He said that smell that you're smelling is coming from my legs.
• 52:12
  He's like, I'm I'm so sorry.
• 52:14
  He kept he kept apologizing.
• 52:15
  He's like, I'm so sorry that I stink.
• 52:18
  And he said, It's it's my legs.
• 52:20
  My legs are literally rotting.
• 52:24
  Can you imagine?
• 52:27
  Can you imagine how embarrassing that is?
• 52:30
  You imagine what he felt in that moment.
• 52:33
  Thinking everybody's judging him.
• 52:34
  He's apologizing because his legs stink because they're literally rotting off of his body.
• 52:42
  Yeah, he didn't have an ID, he didn't have money.
• 52:45
  Every time he gets a phone, his phone gets stolen.
• 52:47
  You tell me how somebody's gonna go out and show up for a job and not only show up for for an interview, but be able to impress somebody and be the candidate that they're gonna hire.
• 52:59
  You tell me how that's gonna happen.
• 53:03
  And so the reality is that we need to get these myths out of our head and realize sometimes people just need they just need help.
• 53:14
  They need us to walk them through a very long, agonizing process.
• 53:21
  It takes money, it takes a lot of money, it takes time, it takes community, it takes people who pray.
• 53:29
  I'm a firm, firm, firm believer in prayer.
• 53:33
  I believe a lot of this stuff cannot happen without prayer.
• 53:37
  In fact, Jesus talked about that.
• 53:38
  You remember the story when his disciples couldn't cast out demons.
• 53:44
  There was this demon-possessed child, and the father said, Well, your disciples tried, but they couldn't cast the demons out.
• 53:52
  And Jesus is like, oh my goodness.
• 53:53
  He's like, you have little faith.
• 53:55
  You know, he's kind of like, ah, those disciples.
• 53:59
  And he said, quote, this kind only comes out by prayer.
• 54:06
  And I thought, what a powerful reminder that even Jesus Christ, the Son of God, turned to prayer as the only method to exercise demons from a little child to bring healing to a little child.
• 54:22
  That was the only way that it was gonna happen.
• 54:26
  And Jesus knelt down and he prayed.
• 54:31
  I am a firm, firm believer in prayer.
• 54:36
  And a lot of times we we want to like wave the wand, get mad at the government, we want to protest, we want to talk about government programs and how Republicans are cutting programs and Democrats are overspending on programs, right?
• 54:51
  We get caught in these endless debates that never go anywhere.
• 54:55
  Instead of just lifting a finger and stepping in and doing the right thing.
• 55:00
  And I'm telling you, if we do that as a nation, if we do that as individuals, if we step up to the plate and we do exactly what Staffi did, and we just trust, we trust God that God's gonna take that, He's gonna, he's gonna put the message to the right people at the right time and raise the right amount of money.
• 55:21
  If we firmly believe that, I believe it's gonna happen every time.
• 55:26
  I honest to goodness believe that.
• 55:28
  And that's the hidden lightness.
• 55:30
  I the reason I believe it is because I see it over and over and over and over again.
• 55:36
  I have covered countless stories on this show just like this, where somebody starts to go fund me and it goes absolutely wild.
• 55:47
  I've seen it in my own ministry.
• 55:48
  I've seen where we've had impossible scenarios, and I've not publicized this stuff.
• 55:56
  I've just shared it with with my own small church.
• 56:00
  And somehow the money always shows up.
• 56:04
  The people who need to be there at the right place at the right time, they always show up.
• 56:10
  But we have to pray, and we have to act.
• 56:14
  It doesn't happen by praying alone.
• 56:18
  And it doesn't happen by acting alone.
• 56:21
  We have to pray and we have to move.
• 56:23
  We have to put our feet into motion and actually step into the lives of people.
• 56:28
  Folks, that is the hidden lightness.
• 56:31
  We all have the ability.
• 56:32
  I hope this story inspires you.
• 56:34
  I pray that you go out and find somebody and help today.
• 56:38
  You can find more out about my show and get all the latest podcasts if you go to the menu navigation bar at AmericaOutloud.news under our show's worst schedule.
• 56:46
  You'll be in the know.
• 56:47
  There is a hidden lightness that shines inside of all of us.
• 56:50
  When so much darkness envelops the world, remember that it doesn't take much light to expose that darkness and to ultimately inspire other people.
• 56:58
  Join me in being a light.