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They found his body in the woods across from the Marley Station Mall parking lot, where you leave your car when you shop at Sears, or Hechts or Macy's. It's a quiet spot, yet right near the place where Route 100 crosses over Ritchie Highway. 'The Passion of the Christ' was being shown that night in the cinema a few hundred yards from the gully where he died.

The Winter Relief Shelter program had closed for the season the week before he was found. He was white, male, had grey hair and beard. He was emaciated, weighing a little over 130 pounds. There was the tattoo of a lady and a dragon on his arm. To my knowledge no one ever found his name or someone to claim his remains. And yet, if God is of infinite mercy, and I believe God is, John Doe is no longer homeless; he has a home.

The Gospel of Mark tells us, 'The poor you will always have with you and you can help them any time you want.' That passage should be read as a challenge for action when Jesus was gone. It is the challenge of identifying and loving your neighbor.

Over a dozen years ago a few Glen Burnie area clergy and laity began the Winter Relief Project to shelter homeless men during cold weather. It is an ecumenical ministry of 36 churches along the Baltimore-Annapolis corridor, representing 11 ecclesiastic traditions. All of them are committed to serving one God. Its mission is to prevent death by freezing, or hypothermia, during the 21 coldest weeks of the year ? early November to early April.

The shelter moves from church basement to church basement on a weekly basis.

Each afternoon at about 3:30 the men begin to arrive at the Salvation Army on Crain Highway in Glen Burnie. An hour-and-a-half later they have completed the daily processing routine ? demonstrating that they are apparently drug free, sane and sober ? and a small fleet of cars and vans from the sheltering church arrives to transport them to their home for that week. A warm welcome, a hot supper, a safe evening and a restful night indoors on a cot follows. In the morning a nourishing breakfast prepares them for another day on the street.

They do die. Someone dies almost every year. One year we lost three. Their bodies suffer from a lifetime of neglect and abuse. Their immune systems are shot. Some can't get medicine and others are too fearful to try. And yet, the volunteers all know them, drink coffee and eat supper with them. They share stories and jokes. We become friends.

It's distressing, hurtful and angering when something happens to one of them. But it does, and in the end, most wander off, move on, become incarcerated or fall through the cracks. A few become institutionalized and about one-third of them show up the next November and the routine starts again. And each year more! Last year we averaged more than 32 guests per night.

I once set a goal that we would be so good at what we do that no one would die during that winter. No one did.

But later someone did die and I felt thwarted, a failure, even angry. Gradually I have learned not to make goals that are really God's prerogatives. God does not ask us to always succeed but rather always to be faithful. And the sheltering churches of the Winter Relief Ministry are trying to be just that.

Between Nov. 11, 2003, when the shelter season opened, and April 6, 2004, when it closed, the sheltering churches provided 4,439 bed nights of shelter and served 14,787 meals to shelter guests and volunteer staff.

There is no such thing as 'the homeless.' There is just Joe and Kenneth and Larry along with Mary and Norma and all the rest. Friends of ours.

They are just folks who made a long series of bad decisions, who were taught not to believe, not to have faith but to abandon hope. They were abused and disparaged until they agreed that it was their fault entirely and they deserved nothing better. They medicated themselves to escape that shame and pain for a time. In other words, they are folks who need to see ? and gradually come to believe in ? a gracious and caring God who loves them. That can be accomplished through simple acts of practical friendship and sharing on a one-to-one basis.

There are other grass-roots, ecumenical, on-a-shoe-string, sheltering ministries within the boundaries of our conference. (See related story, page 1.) There should be more. We, as a conference, should be encouraging this ministry in every district.

Does anybody out there hear me?

The Rev. Daniel Stone is a pastor at Delmont UMC in Severn.