Downtown on New Year's Day-2019

"Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat."  Mother Teresa

Yesterday someone posted this on facebook, "Show love in places where no one else will show up."  I'll always raise my hand at that opportunity.  As for the Mother Teresa quote above, most of the people I see fall into both categories, poor and lonely.  There's something irresistible to me about the man or woman who is all alone either wearing all their stuff or having it sitting next to them ready to pick up and move when they have to move on.  The last couple of trips have been filled with these types of people.

A week ago I went downtown on Christmas Eve in the early afternoon.  On one of the allies that I go down (where I usually see several folks) I only saw one woman, probably in her fifties.  She was in a wheelchair.  When I drove up I asked if she was hungry and she told me she was.  She asked if I was the guy that brings the sandwiches.  I told her I was and she told me she was hoping I would come by!  How's that for a welcome?  I told her I didn't have sandwiches that day, but I had made some pasta and it was hot.  She was my first person of the trip and her name was Carmen.  She was so grateful.  We talked for a while, I didn't want to pry too much, but she told me she had been kidnapped at twelve years old and forced to work in the streets.  I don't know what country she was from, someplace south of here no doubt.  Since it was Christmas Eve, I told her this was the day we celebrate God sending the hope of Jesus into the world.  She told me people often ask her why she isn't angry with God and she told me God has blessed her very much and she has a great family, but they live a ways away.  I had hoped to see her yesterday, New Years Day, when I made the trip, but she wasn't to be found. I'll keep looking for her next week.  Remember the guy a couple months back who kissed my hand repeatedly after I had given him a sandwich and prayed with him.  This woman was in the same spot he had been!

Another woman, perhaps a little older than Carmen, I had hoped to see last week, but didn't.  Yet yesterday, I did see her. She lives in a van that I don't think runs anymore on a street off Central and 27th.  Her name is Maria.  She is all alone too, with no family anywhere to help her.  She speaks little English and is from Mexico.  Two years ago she was in a serious auto accident where she received some major injuries.  She has no money and no family.  I am committed to finding some agency to help her.  She accepted the food and water and I gave her a blanket too and got to pray for her.  She was very happy when I left.

I don't know why, but lately, I've been helping a lot more women than I have in the past.  Coincidentally, I've had more women's clothes lately too.  

I'll leave this as a short one.  Yes, there are many others I see on these trips, but these have stuck in my heart so much.  We all have so much to be thankful for and these two women had so little, yet they were so thankful and happy to be talked to and to be helped.  I'll always consider it a privilege to go to these places, where no one else seems to want to go.  Thank you Lord for this blessing.  --Until next time.   John