“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” Matthew 25:40 (TNIV)
If there’s ever been a season in my lifetime where the “least of these” should warrant attention and effort (ESPECIALLY FROM THE CHURCH) it’s RIGHT NOW. Just listen to the news or drive a few miles around any major city. Before long, the results of a struggling economy and its effects on businesses and families become obvious. In fact, The National Center on Family Homelessness just released their report this past week showing that in the midst of white-collar executives begging for bailouts there’s 1.5 million kids in OUR COUNTRY homeless.
Is that not CRAZY? We’re the richest and most advanced country on the planet and yet each night (despite the weather conditions) close to 2 million of OUR children are homeless! The study is very detailed and provoking (go to www.homelesschildrenamerica.org for more info and to view state by state results). I found it interesting to see how poor my state (Georgia) treats this epidemic (of the 58,397 homeless children in GA, close to 51,000 are eighth grade and younger).
The past few days, I’ve had a growing-concern for the homeless. I’ll admit that over the years it hasn’t been a direct concern of mine because I don’t know one child that’s homeless. Needless to say, it’s one of those issues that fall into the category of “things to do if I ruled the world” (along with curing cancer, fixing the ozone layer, and capturing Osama Bin Laden)!
A week ago, I had the privilege to accompany a good friend who’s preparing for a huge evangelistic effort (at the end of March) to assist the less fortunate in the city of Baltimore, Maryland (www.bcmd.org/uncharted). Part of the planning was to join a couple of churches with their youth groups in downtown Washington, DC to feed the homeless. To say I was moved would be a gross understatement.
This was one of those experiences where I had to rethink how I was personally doing life. The experience made me aware to how fortunate my life has been and what’s more provoking, how much I actually WASTE! I felt like the biggest baldhead-HYPOCRITE considering the amount of money I BLOW on fast food and items of clothes I wear ONCE or TWICE. After every conversation, I’d silently ask myself, “Dula, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?” Not only can I do more, ME & MINES (which is a ghetto way of saying “my family and I”) WILL BE DOING MORE!!!
Let it be known, we didn’t encounter a lot of homeless children during our relatively short stay in the park at the corners of K & 14th streets. However, we did connect with several individuals (mostly men) who made some poor choices and had the humility to admit it (most of whom were younger than 40)! None of these men made plans while they were children to grow up one day and live on the streets. I wonder how easy or difficult it might be for a child who has experienced homelessness accept or reject it as an adult?
All in all, there weren’t any camera-crews from the local media airing our efforts. No writers from major magazines joined us. Didn’t have any representation from the government (although we were within MINUTES from the White House). Yet, I believe with all the compassion and love that was shown, we were able to provide the kind of representation “to the least of these” that would both make Christ known as well as make Him proud.
Mar 18, 2009 @ 03:38:33
Man, this is great! So good to see that your hand has never left the plow–because Christ hasn’t left his throne to come get us yet.