Kindness toward a homeless woman killed in August in a hit-and-run accident is helping Irondale Church feed people this winter.

How that happened can only be told by first telling of the tragedy, a tragedy that ended up delivering both a blessing to the woman's family and a gift to the church that will allow them to continue offering their free Community Soup program.

ONE ENDING

Esther Marie Machado, 38, was homeless and mentally ill when she was hit by a car while riding her bicycle down State Route 19 between Irondale Road and Four Corners Road at about 1 a.m. on Aug. 25, 2015. Machado was riding toward Port Hadlock, wearing a bicycle helmet and dark clothing at the time, when she was struck from behind.

Jeremy Jon Morris, 40, pleaded guilty to hit and run and vehicular homicide and was sentenced in September to four and a half years in prison for Machado's death. Morris was found to be under the influence of methamphetamine. He initially left the scene of the accident, returning later upon the urging of a woman in Port Townsend.

And those are the hard, cold facts of a moment in which the lives of Machado and Morris collided and connected.

THE CHURCH

Before that accident there were years and years of moments when Machado connected with and sought help from Irondale Church.

David Hodgin, the church's pastor, reflected on them recently in a story in the church's newsletter.

Hodgin remembered Machado, her husband and a toddler attending church years ago. He remembered her being pregnant. He remembered her asking for help. He remembered giving it to her.

The church gets requests all the time, and Hodgin admitted that he's been lied to many times over the years.

Machado lied to him, too.

“A couple of years went by, and one Sunday evening there was that young mother. Her name was Esther. She needed some help and was surprised that I recognized her, and I'm not sure why I did. Maybe it was her eyes. A look that was far away, insecure, worried and lonely all rolled up into one. We did what we could for her and then she disappeared again,” he said in the story he wrote for the church newsletter, which he shared with the Leader on Dec. 21 after the Leader found out about it while pursuing a different story.

Esther found her way back to the church after repeated absences.

And the church continued to offer her food and sanctuary.

During that time, in response to the economic recession and the strain it was putting upon public and private resources in Jefferson County, in 2011 the church started Community Soup, a Tuesday-evening meal for anyone who wanted or needed it: no sermon, no strings.

“We offered no program, no get-your-life-together classes, just soup, bread, a cookie and a warm place and friendly people,” he wrote, adding he's not sure how homeless people found it, but they did.

"She took countless showers in our Annex, ate many bowls of soup and often took a container of soup to eat later."

As nearly four years passed, Machado's health deteriorated. She insisted that her name was Sarah, Hodgin remembered, and she became even less social. She became, in fact, a hard case.

"Esther never took no very well," he wrote. "She would explode with anger, douse us with a piece of her mind and storm off.

“Toward the end, she even stopped eating soup and only wanted cookies,” he wrote.

Hodgin said that was “toward the end” to acknowledge her death, but then acknowledged that the story he was telling didn't come to a complete end when Machado died a few miles from the church.

THE BACKPACK

It turned out that after she was forced to move from an abandoned house, Machado had entrusted Hodgin with a few personal items, including a backpack he had stored in his garage. When he and a friend opened the backpack, they found a letter Machado had written to her oldest son.

They realized it needed to be in the hands of her family. They called Kosec Funeral Home in Port Townsend, which put them in touch with a sister in California.

“Their family was like so many families we know; just a family, not perfect, not horrible, just a family trying to do their best," Hodgin wrote. "I also learned that Esther's children had been adopted by one of the sisters. The children had never been in foster care; the family was there for them all along.

“The sisters were excited at the idea of getting the backpack; they wanted anything that had been Esther's. So we sent the backpack and received back one of the most beautiful letters ever.”

THE BLESSING

Machado's sister Rebekah Machado De Quevedo wrote a letter to the church, thanking them for the backpack and journal.

“I want you to know that your congregation was an answer to our prayers,” she wrote.

"We prayed daily for Esther and continued to ask God to send people her way to love on her and to minister her. I often prayed that God would lead her to people or lead people to her that could impart God's truth and mercy.

“Though her choices were ultimately all her own, and God couldn't go against her free will, I knew he kept trying to reach her. He was using you and your congregation to do just that,” she wrote.

“The items you sent are also a direct gift of God's favor. They will give her two children a glimpse into her heart when they are older. Her journals will show them that they were indeed loved and deeply missed by her, their biological mother, and that despite the circumstances in which they were taken from her care due to her mental illness, she did deeply love them and wanted them in her life.

“She had value … and the Christ-like love you showed her would have reminded her of what grace is, even if at times, she may have been too mentally ill to fully appreciate or recognize it.

“On behalf of myself and my family, thank you. And may God bless you and your church for all the outpouring of love and grace you showed to her and to others.”

Hodgin said the sister went further than that letter. She and the company she works for donated almost $3,000 to the church for its ministries.

“At a time when the donations to Soup and the Benevolence were down and the reserves almost exhausted, God sent monies from a very unlikely source. He gave us the money to continue through a person who had nothing to give, Esther.

“It feels as though she is saying, ‘There you go, now we are even for the money and bowls of soup. Sorry I could be such a problem, thanks for not kicking me out, even when I deserved it. Maybe this money will help you love others as you loved me.’”

And he ended the piece in the newsletter by saying he hears the voice of God echoing through time, saying, “Well done my good and faithful servants. My servants at Irondale and my servants in Esther's family, when you have done it unto the least of my brethren, you have done it unto me.”

The Machado family raised $1,100 to give to the church in her memory. A foundation De Quevedo works for gave $1,750. She said another $750 is on its way to support the church's efforts. She's continuing to raise money for the church.

THE FAMILY

In a statement to the court in September 2015, when Morris was sentenced, De Quevedo remembered her older sister, the mother of two boys, lovingly. She described Machado as strong-willed, independent, stubborn, tender-hearted, creative, funny, intelligent and mischievous. Those are the words she used to describe her sister.

“It wasn't until she was in her mid-twenties that her mental illness started manifesting itself. Her paranoia and insistence that the colors people [were] wearing were hidden messages meant for her or that the casual comments of a stranger were meant as digging insults began to escalate and cause her to isolate herself,” De Quevedo wrote.

“I spent countless hours on the phone with her, took trips up to Washington state from my home here in California to try to help her, advise her to get help, convince her that her perceptions were off and weren't making sense. But my words were dismissed and would even anger her,” she said.

Like Hodgin, De Quevedo watched as her sister started to dabble in drugs. She was frustrated that local officials could do little because Machado was “smart enough to know her rights and manipulate the situation.”

“She tried hard to stay on her meds as she was finally diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia with rageful tendencies. The diagnosis explained so much,” she wrote.

“I wish I could find the right words to explain how painful it is to watch someone you love so much slowly disappear into the folds of a mental illness. It is like watching a little piece of them wither away, like a flower, one petal at a time, until what is left, seems brittle, fragile and desperately weak to any gust of wind that might blow upon it.

“She was like a withering flower. We tried to water her with love, encouragement, patience and grace.”

De Quevedo said that although people in Jefferson County did not know much about her sister, she had a family that loved and missed her.

“Just because she was presently transient, mentally ill, and trying desperately to survive, doesn't mean she wasn't worth anything. She was worth everything to us. She had value. Her life was not a waste," De Quevedo said. “It was just troubled.”

In her statement to the court September, De Quevedo said she hoped Morris, the man who killed Machado on that night in August, can clean up his life so that Machado's death would not be in vain.

The Leader reached out to De Quevedo Monday night at her home in California.

De Quevedo explained that she is a financial associate for Robert W. Baird & Company, a private wealth management firm.

After she got the backpack, she was so moved she submitted a request to the Baird Foundation to match a gift she intended to give the Irondale Church.

She said her manager, Adam Persily, had only known that she had lost her sister. After he learned of the circumstances and the church's kindness, he pitched in and wanted to donate on behalf of three branches he supervises.

“They [corporate headquarters] then matched his donations as well. I was so moved, not only because this huge company that I work for took my hurt and sorrow to heart, but recognized the true blessing that the Irondale Church gave my family.”

De Quevedo said that the journals the church gave her were written by her sister while her sister was in treatment in a mental facility in Tacoma.

“At the time she was being treated and medicated, she had moments of clarity and was able to write to the boys.”

Those journals, she said, are priceless.

“For these two boys, that will be a gift only described as a miracle.”

When she learned that the donation her family and co-workers had made to the church were making a difference, she said she was both happy and heartbroken.

“Here are these people donating selflessly to the community and they don't have the funds to keep it going,” she said.

“Maybe more people will donate to the church. I hope it helps.”