‘We love the unlovable’
Once homeless, boomer now manages shelter that befriends them
ODESSA, Texas — Chris Ryan Cooper led a whimsical and often dangerous life until deciding to turn things around.
Now manager of the Salvation Army’s Mabee Red Shield Lodge, he had taken a peripatetic path from growing up on a farm and ranch near Gruver, in the northern Panhandle, to stints at Texas Tech, being “a ski bum” in Colorado, serving in the Navy for six years and building houses in Texas and Utah to spending six years on the streets of San Diego and Fresno, California, injecting methamphetamines. “I was wanting to die,” he says. “Every day I’d wake up and say, ‘Well, today I’m going to die.’ It just never happened. Jesus had work for me to do.”
The pivotal event was meeting a former Major League player in the San Diego County Jail. “He opened my ears to understanding that salvation is a free gift,” said Cooper, who had remained a baseball fan.
“He told me about Jesus and said I had misunderstood as a youth that you must be holy because God is holy. I had thought I couldn’t do that, given up on Christianity and gone from unbelief to anger. He’d broken his back in a collision at the plate and turned to painkillers and alcohol.”
Down to 100 pounds, Cooper went to Austin after his release, spent six months in the Salvation Army’s Adult Rehabilitation Center and was assistant manager of one of its thrift stores until taking an offer in 2012 to manage the shelter. He now weighs 180 at age 55.
“We love the unlovable and care about the people who people don’t tend to care about,” he said.
Cooper’s father died in 2002. His mother is in Tyler. He has a brother and a sister. He has no children.
Accepting residents after 5 p.m., the shelter requires that they be sober and find work to stay for up to three months. Putting out cots in cold weather, it has held up to 65 men, women and children. Cooper has four staff members, somewhat similar to his assignment as a supervisory sonar technician on the U.S. Bunker Hill cruiser.
Cooper said being homeless is less daunting than people think because a homeless person quickly learns where to find food and shelter.
“There’s almost a joy in it because of the lack of responsibility. I had always had alcohol and occasionally marijuana, and I had a friend who managed a construction company in California. I went out there from Utah, and things brought me down to a very dark place.
“I have never been a violent person, but I was always hustling. I met a fellow who had a peach ranch, and for the last three years I lived on that ranch and worked for room and board. I didn’t care about people and was happy to use them. Now it’s the other way around. I don’t mind being used and putting someone else’s will above my own.” Every day I’d wake up and say, ‘Well, today I’m going to die.’ It just never happened. Jesus had work for me to do.
Cooper also finds fulfillment as an elder at Redeemer Lutheran Church and in studies of theologians Martin Luther and Martin Chemnitz and hymnist Paul Gerhardt.
“I’m the most joyful I have ever been. I encourage the community to support the Salvation Army because we do a lot of good work here.”
Redeemer Lutheran Pastor Erik Stadler said Cooper “is so thankful for the change God made in his life that he wants to share it with those around him.”
Fellow elder Bobby Stokes said Cooper “is a dedicated Christian who loves to serve people and serve God.
“He found Christ later in life after he had been through a lot of ups and downs,” Stokes said.