Sunday, August 19, 2007

A memorable Week-end


About a week or two ago, on a Saturday I did something that I had never done in my life before. I joined the ministry in my church called "Feed The People". I got to church at about 11:30am. The menu of the day was salad, spaghetti for the entrée and as a desert, chocolate cream pie. There was a bunch of vegetables to cut into small pieces and a load of tracks to fold. By 2pm, after the food and the tracks were ready, we loaded them into the two vans that would gad us around the streets of Kansas City. We (about ten of us) gathered to implore God's favor The first van would go at a popular park where it is expected to see homeless people and the second van, the one I was in, would go wander under the bridges, in front of a high rise buildings and shelters to distribute foods to all those "hungry" people; hungry of a good diner, hungry of a better tomorrow, hungry of a better life. That week end was really really hot, it was about in the 90s outside. We were strolling the streets of downtown and laying down on a thin piece of cloth was a man, he could barely moved, so skinny was he, so deshydrated was he that one of us had to sponged his face w/ some cold water. The next stop was under a bridge. At this bridge, there was a "dénivellation" between the upper freeway right where its socle laid and the lower road, right there, four homeless had found refuge. We gave them some food with drinks and a track and wished a happy "God Bless you" and they gladly wished the same back to us. We stopped by at least five different bridges, all people we encounter were white. By 4pm we were wandering in a neighborhood for low income families, and something struck me there: a bunch of kids running around, playing with one another, and the "parents" (sometimes too young to be parents) sitting in front of the house doing nothing or getting pregnant then strutting about up and around; here, the racial predominance was black. So I thought what is the chance for a kid growing in this neighborhood not to replicate the same deeds as their parents? Or should I say as their 'parent' (with no 's') as most of the time, 'daddy' is not around. In a country so full of resources and opportunities why are there still so many people in miserable, indescribable conditions? I used to be very skeptical and critical of those people, thinking they were lazy bums til one day, I went to a food distribution with a different organization and we watched a video and this women, was telling her story: she was well educated, had two degrees and a master, had a good income and her own house, then she became sick and the diagnosis turned out to be more serious than anticipated, she had to take time off work, then more time off, then some more time off til the company had to "let her go", by ricochet lost her health insurance; at the meantime medical bills would accumulate, she tapped into her house equity to pay for them, eventually she couldn't keep up any longer with the bills and eventually lost her house and had to ask for charity to survive. The only crime she had committed was to become sick. After witnessing all that misery on the streets of KC, only humility and gratefulness should fill one's heart. We ended our tour around 7pm, got back to church, rinsed the dishes, thanked God in a brief moment of prayer for a day well accomplished, then took our separates ways.

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