A United Methodist Church pastor who wanted to experience what the poor and outcast endure has dedicated recent years to living with those who "sleep under the stars."

The Rev. Lorenza Andrade Smith avoids using the term "homeless" when describing people she has met who live in scarcity yet often offer her hospitality and willingness to share.

Serving as the keynote speaker this weekend at the First United Methodist Church of Hono­lulu’s annual Britt Lectures, Andrade Smith will share insights gathered during her travels.

After touching down in Hono­lulu earlier this month, Andrade Smith, who describes her travels as "spiritually transformative," spent time in tent cities along the Wai­anae Coast and along the Kapa­lama Canal on Kohou Street, where she depended on hospitality of strangers for food, shelter and directions to the nearest restroom, she said.

Her ongoing mission is simply to "communicate the love of God." Andrade Smith said, "I do this by being present, listening and learning." She added, "I don’t have an agenda or solution" to the burgeoning problems tied to living on the streets.

However, the pastor from Brownsville, Texas, is an advocate for justice and systemic change in the way the poor are treated. While on the streets, Andrade Smith is open about being a minister but maintains that she isn’t there to proselytize.

Now in her fourth year on the streets, Andrade Smith describes her travels as a "contemplative pilgrimage" to discern and share what she’s learning on the streets in the United States as well as in Israel, Gua­te­mala, Australia, India, Vietnam, Russia, Iceland and Italy.

Before her travels got underway in 2011, Andrade Smith spent more than a year negotiating journey terms with Bishop James E. Dorff of the United Methodist Church’s San Antonio office. His conditions include staying in touch by telephone and paying for land and air travel expenses.

Andrade Smith secured permission to live in poverty on the streets for at least three years. Anything less, she said, would have been "like a camping trip."

While the 45-year-old pastor has family members who worry about her safety, "I’ve not had a violent incident from those on the streets. There’s been complete hospitality. I’ve found if you treat someone with human dignity, they will respond to you with dignity." Instances of aggression, she said, have come only from security officers and "housed people."

Even so, as a woman sometimes sleeping in the vicinity of unstable people, she aims to be "prudent and cautious but not fearful." When struggling with fear, she clings to a Bible passage that asserts, "There is no fear in love; perfect love casts out fear."

Churches, business communities and city governments must confront poverty issues with such fearlessness.

A business is understandably afraid of losing revenue when homeless people are camped nearby; city governments worry about liability; and churchgoers are sometimes trapped between disobeying the city ordinances or God, who requires them to give charity to the needy, she said.

Though the homeless are often stereotyped as irresponsible alcoholics or drug addicts, "most of the people I meet are working" and once belonged to the educated middle class, Andrade Smith said. She added that in some cases, street people have lost a job or had an injury and consequently could not keep up with the rent.

The difference between the homeless and those who are housed is that the "those on the streets lost their last support system, they burned their bridges," Andrade Smith said.

She maintains that city governments that advise churches and charities to refrain from feeding homeless or make it unlawful for anyone to lie down on public property essentially criminalize poverty.

"These are euphemisms to disguise the issue of wanting to rid the public of homelessness. This is happening across the U.S. and the globe. We’re criminalizing the poor, and we’re criminalizing those who are helping the poor," said Andrade Smith, noting that she has been jailed four times when she wasn’t able to pay the fines for sleeping outside.

"Many of the towns that have these ordinances are tourist towns. I’ve been in the business world. To see the homeless in front of a business can detract from the revenue. I understand the complexity of the issues. The question is, How can we be humanitarian so there is a win-win situation or a compromise?"