With so many families in need and hurting and wanting and waiting, it's difficult to know where or how to begin. Help will eventually come from several sources, but what about immediate needs? What about the older folks who don't have pillows? What about the kids who don't have shoes? What about the parents, sick themselves, trying to take care of the coughing baby? So much is being done and so many are volunteering, but this situation is absurd. To have the oppotunity to be in the midst of it and able to have some type of impact is a great opportunity.
I went with our minister to senior adults (Mike) and his administrative assistant (Sandy) to one of the shelters today. Each of us drove, assuming we'd need the all the space we could offer to transport the large family Mike had met earlier in the week. We arrived and walked through the facility and I was again speechless at cot after cot jammed together in the buildings. We found a few of the teenage girls and they helped gather up the rest of the family and we headed out to Target, not only to allow them to go shopping, but to allow them a chance to get out of the same walls they've been staring at the past several days.
There were ten in the family that we took: two adult females, three teenage girls, two pre-teens girls, two three-year old boys, and a two-year old girl. Once we arrived at Target, we got them Icees and began to shop. I spent my time pushing Remuel and Harold (the three-year olds) around in a cart and got to hang out with them for a few hours. What cute, adorable, crazy kids. Since the older girls were shopping for themselves and the younger kids, these guys got pretty bored after they finished their Icees. Harold had to go to the bathroom, so I got to take him. Completely unsure of his potty-training and potty-abilities, I awkwardly walked into the men's room and took to a urinal. He was ok from there, though he needed help buttoning his pants. I helped him wash his hands too. Good, I thought, that wasn't too bad.
As we stepped to the exit, he told me he had to go poop too. He walked up to the stalls and found both of them occupied, so we waited with him doing a bit of a dance trying to hold it in. Finally, someone stepped out and we stepped in. Yes, both of us stepped in. He got on the potty and stunk up the place; I didn't know kids had that in them. He asked me to hand him some tissue, which I did and asked if he needed help. He nonchalantly looked up at me and said, "No thank you, I can wipe my own butt." Oh, I almost lost it. He finished up and we washed his hands again, then joined back up with the group who were headquartered in the girls' underwear section.
The two boys and I played in the aisles, sometimes consisting of me chasing one then the other through the store asking them to come back. I pushed them around in the cart and showed them different things. I took them to pick out a toy, which was quite an event. I can't imagine having kids and even dreaming of going near one of those aisles. Marketers for these stores and products are awful; they know exactly what they're doing to make the kids say, "I want that one" for everything. (I'm sure this is not news to you parents out there; my sympathy for your headaches from the screaming.) The boys found a truck they liked and took that to check-out.
When we got to the parking lot, the girls went back in for a CD player Sandy was going to buy them, so I put the boys in my truck to get some pictures. Here are a couple of them:
It was such a touching, sweet, and energy-consuming time with those boys and their family, but incredibly worth every second and penny. I don't write this to pat anyone on the back; I write it to remind myself that there's only so much we can each do. The feelings I felt walking back to the shelter with all those bags from Target for this family were of wanting to do the same for each person we passed by. I had the thoughts of "Are we setting this family up to be resented? Are they now targets for those who are looking to steal? Was all the money spent done so wisely? Is this a time of generosity or spreading the wealth as far as possible?"
So I write to help me sleep, and I'll sleep somewhat better knowing that almost twenty people are going to bed tonight having experienced the love of Jesus (possibly for the first time), whether they knew it or not. What was done today, from the money spent to the hugs I received from Remuel and Harold when I left, may merely be a drop in the bucket of all the needs that exist. But not to them. We're heroes.
And it's nice for God's people to be thought of like that, since we are in his image, but being heroes in their eyes is not what matters. What matters is our communities following our hearts to movements such as these. I'm not going to be able to go back near that shelter without finding those boys, if only to say hi. Things like this touch deeply, for every party involved. Our hearts will lead to many different endeavors, but I hope that we'll find ourselves with the hurting ones along those paths. I hope we'll love and touch and hold and encourage directly, be the literal hands and feet of Jesus to those scattered throughout our country.
Selfishly I ask (out of what's touched me), if you have the chance to visit a shelter, please do so. Find a story to listen to. Find someone to hug. Find a tear to dry. And when you do, you'll find God already there, working and comforting, and waiting to catch the drops we hold to fill the bucket.
