What a sight. I couldn't have imagined the mass of so many without a warm, soft, clean bed to sleep in; without food for the rest of the day; without family to go to in their time of need. It put a lot of things into perspective for me.
While passing out the cookies, Sweet Pea noticed that one of the men was deaf. When she told me, I immediately sought him out. His name is Archie. He was very patient with me and my 2 years of sign language with no practical experience. At one point in the conversation, I asked him what he was going to do for the rest of the day. He said, "Be bored." I thought about him the rest of the day. Especially as I was preparing our Christmas dinner/feast. It was all I could do to keep from asking Hubby if we could go back down there and find him and bring him home.
As the men finished up their doughnuts and coffee and started heading out for the day, Archie starting working. I saw him cleaning up and moving boxes. I could tell he was a worker. There are homeless people who are bumbs - they're there because they choose to be; because they are lazy. Archie's not one of them. I think many of the men there want to work, want to get out of that place. It weighs on my heart.
I invited Archie and his friend (also deaf) to church Sunday. I want to introduce them to my first sign language teacher who is also deaf. They said they would be waiting for us Sunday morning. I'll let you know.
5 comments:
What a great idea Jenny. I have often thought about doing this with the girls but wondered if they were too young to go. Do you think it was a good experience/environment for the little ones? I will consider doing this soon.
Seriously...I have tears in my eyes reading this. I'm so going to discuss this with Preston for next year! Thank you!!
Karen, because John has spent so much time with these men and takes his boys with him on Thur nights, I felt confident that it was safe. I did tell the kids to stay right with us and not to go anywhere. They asked if the men were nice and I told them yes but not all of them love Jesus. But I said Jesus loves them and we were going to love them too.
Every Thurs night a group from church goes downtown to feed and minister to the homeless. Call me and I'll get you more details.
What a great thing for your kids to experience! Chris and I definitely want to take the kids and participate in ministering to these men. Thank you for sharing it with us!!
Inspiring Jenny! Time well spent - I know Jesus was probably smiling down upon your family saying, "Now THEY get IT!!"
I hope they made it to church to visit today :)
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