“I’m Livin’ the Dream”
A glimpse behind the scenes of the Mustard Seed Soup Run
Dougie Hobson has spent over 40 years helping homeless people in Dublin. But it all started when he was a young lad of 17 working behind the tea and coffee counter at Bewley’s in Grafton Street.
(From the January - March 2021 issue of VOX)
A natural born storyteller, Dougie leans towards the screen [yes, this is yet another Zoom interview]. His eyes are shining as he recalls, “This lady came into the shop, dressed in a number of coats and carrying two big bags. I was fascinated with her.”
In those days, you could drive down Grafton Street and Dougie would drive to and from work on his motorbike. Two days after that first encounter, he spotted the lady in a doorway, preparing to spend the night. “I stopped my bike and went to chat with her and I asked if I could get her anything.”
The lady produced a hot water bottle and asked if he could go into a local café to fill it. She also asked for a bag of chips and insisted on paying for them. “I went and got the hot water and the chips and came back. She took them both and put them inside her coat, to keep herself warm. And that was where it all began.”
Dougie was involved in various projects over the years but since 2006, he has been volunteering with the Mustard Seed Soup Run founded by Maura O’Neill. The project, which is an outreach of Trinity Church in Gardiner Street in Dublin city centre, is run entirely by volunteers.
“Originally we had a walking teams that would go out on a Monday night. One team of two people would cover the north side of the city and another would cover the south side,” Dougie explains. Easily recognisable in their bright red jackets, the team would give out hot food and drinks and stop for a chat with people sleeping rough.”
“Prayer is a huge part of my life. I pray about absolutely everything and at any time in the day. I don’t hear voices but God does talk to me. I get this very clear kind of impression on my heart about something,” Dougie explains. “In the early days, we used to do all-nighters three or four times a year. We would have a special time of prayer and then hit the streets between 2 and 3am.”
“I got this crystal clear feeling that I should offer to prayer for him.”
“This particular Monday night, we met Sven* from Sweden. We don’t know how he ended up in Ireland but he was an alcoholic and was sleeping rough. We were just about to go when I got this crystal clear feeling that I should offer to prayer for him. He immediately said yes, so my teammate Bill and I got down beside him and prayed. It was so powerful. We could feel the presence of the Holy Spirit and that was my last encounter with Sven. Two weeks later a volunteer with another soup run told me that she had just dropped Sven off at the airport. He was flying back to Sweden to be reunited with his family.”
One night, Dougie’s right hand man - Ray was leading the team on the south side. It was a busy night and they began working their way down Grafton Street, stopping to chat with homeless people and to serve out cups of soup. A businessman stood watching them for about 20 minutes and then made a trip to a nearby ATM. He came over to Ray and handed him a donation of €500 on the spot.
“I’d never seen such crisp new €50 notes before,” Dougie recalls. “Two days later, I got a call from this man’s PA. She wanted to meet us at Trinity Church. The business had decided to get involved by donating 50 backpacks full of quality winter supplies (woolly hats, sleeping bags, etc.). Ray and I went to hand them out, carefully selecting who should receive the packs. And at the end, we reported back with 50 names and 50 locations [to reassure the business that every backpack had been given to a homeless person who needed it].”
They were so impressed that the following year they donated a catering van which Ray customised. Soon the service was extended to seven nights a week all year round.
“We don’t miss a night,” Dougie says. “There are about 25 volunteers on the team and we have a weekly rota. A team of two people go out every night. Every three months we get supplies from FoodCloud including noodles, soup and drinks. But we are more than just a soup run. We receive donations of tents, sleeping bags and clothes that we distribute and our biggest role is simply to listen to our clients. Sometimes we would even pray with them if the opportunity arises.”
During the pandemic many services stopped and while the Mustard Seed had to suspend its walking teams, the van continued to go out every night, seven days a week without fail.
“One of the good outcomes of the current situation is that there are now more beds available and a good number of homeless people have been able to move off the streets. In some places, they are able to stay during the day whereas before it was just a bed for the night and they had to leave first thing in the morning. Some have even found more permanent housing which is very good,” Dougie shares. “Even so, some clients have really struggled with depression through recent months.”
God’s Mustard Seed
“The Mustard Seed team belongs to God. We pray every night and all sorts of amazing things have happened.”
In the last 14 years, Dougie and the other volunteers have often seen wonderful answers to prayer. “The Mustard Seed team belongs to God. We pray every night and all sorts of amazing things have happened.”
For some time, the owner of a commercial van park allowed the team to park their van for free on his property. Last February, they received notice that the site was to be re-developed and they needed to move out within five days.
That night the team was visiting a group of homeless people in Clontarf. “One of our team members lives nearby and every Thursday, she would cook a stew and bring it piping hot to serve to our clients,” Dougie says. “A man was talking with the lads and said he would be interested in joining the volunteers so they put him in touch with me. At the very end of a 20 minute conversation I happened to mention our problem with parking the van, immediately he said, ‘Well I know where you can park your van.’”
The solution was a social club in Drumcondra and the team has been able to park there ever since. “In fact, they are so good to us that we are even able to fill our flasks at the club every night - thank you Lord!”
A phone call disrupts our Zoom call for a few moments. This evening’s Mustard Seed team were to pick up some doughnuts to give out but there was a mix up. Dougie chats with the supplier and calls the team to make arrangements. It’s all in a night’s work and he is still smiling when he returns to our chat to share about one of the Mustard Seed’s “success stories”
Transformed
While there can be heartbreaks, from time to time the team have witnessed some dramatic and powerful examples of transformation. One of those was Gary*.
He was a painfully thin heroin addict who would sit with his cup, begging beside ATM machines in the centre of Dublin when team members first encountered him. After some time, volunteers were able to support Gary to go into the Tiglin rehabilitation centre. Gary graduated from the full programme, went back to school, completed his leaving cert. and then studied at UCD. Gary is married and when he meets Dougie now he’ll say, “I’m livin’ the dream!”
Another client who used to live in a tent is now off the streets and has been reunited with his family. “If you saw his appearance today compared to when he was living on the streets, you would hardly believe it was the same person. His life has completed turned around and he’s gone from strength to strength,” Dougie grins. “He comes in to see me in the Scripture Union book shop where I work in Dun Laoghaire and one day he even brought his family along to introduce them to me. They were on their way to the cinema!”
While these radical stories are rare and the Mustard Seed team don’t always get to see how the story ends, their faithful and caring presence on the streets of Dublin leaves a lasting impression on the lives of those they meet.
On another occasion, a nun who was the chaplain in Wheatfield Prison rang Dougie to say, “A friend of yours is in Intensive Care in Tallaght Hospital and we’re not sure whether he’ll make it.” She had spent two days trying to track him down and eventually managed to contact him through Trinity Church.
“As soon as I heard the name, I knew who she was talking about. When he became unwell, this client had given my name as his next of kin.”
Dougie headed straight to the hospital and once he’d been checked out, the prison officers allowed him to sit with his friend. “The wonderful news is that he did pull through, although it’s been a while since I last saw him. Building relationship with these guys is a massive privilege.”
