She lives in a bright-turquoise van parked around Pacific Beach that proclaims “Yeshua /Jesus Saves,” relies on a wheelchair after losing a leg, showers at a local gym – and “ministers” to the beach’s homeless. For all that, the woman who calls herself “Dance-Cellah” believes she’s “blessed.” Sure, the septuagenarian with three grandchildren admits, her two children think she’s kooky. “I am kind of kooky.” And confined to a “funny farm” for “alcohol-induced psychosis” three decades ago, she admits she had lost her way.
But she says she’s been sober since she was 40, graduated from college after that and then was “called by God” to live among the homeless and “minister” to them.
With three marriages behind her, the woman, who says her real name is Nancel Lauffer and was once both a secretary and dancer, lives on a $1,700 a month Social Security check from her “best husband.” “People may think I have a screw loose, but whatever Jesus did, people thought he was crazy. Doing what is right can make you look crazy.”
Crazy or not, the woman, who dresses in long, peasant skirts and a choice of a half-dozen big hats, believes, “God allowed me to lose a leg (in a freak van accident)” for good reasons. For one thing, after recuperating in a convalescent home where she claims patients were abused, she has been on a mission for more oversight, including cameras, in skilled-nursing facilities. Meanwhile, “I thought I was supposed to make money, but the Lord sent me to the boardwalk.”
Dance-Cellah says the homeless come to the driver’s-side window of her van and she prays for them. Sometimes, she offers them bananas and sandwiches. “I do not try to change them. I accept them as they are. I love them unconditionally.”
She does discuss their options and says some of the people in her prayers have started feeling better about themselves, sobered up and found jobs.
Of her life on the streets, Dance-Cellah assures people, “It’s not lonely because I’m not alone. I’m married to the Lord.”