"Suppose a brother or sister does not have any clothes or daily food and one of you tells them, "God in peace! Stay warm and eat heartily." If you do not provide for their bodily needs, what good does it do? In the same way, faith by itself, if it does not prove itself with actions, is dead." ~James 2:15-17
I’ve known Mr. Ted for almost 6 years and in that time I
have always known him to be someone who serves people struggling with
poverty. He does plenty of other things
too…he teaches Sunday school, he dances with June (his wife of 60+ years), and
he loves to cheer for the Bulldogs. But
Mr. Ted is known well at the Salvation Army and the local “soup kitchen” Feed My Sheep. He does a really great job of telling his
story about getting engaged in this ministry.
He talks about it like an awakening, and he wonders why he didn’t see
all these needs sooner. He knows that octogenarians
like himself aren’t promised many more decades to make a difference, so his
plan is to make a difference with every day he’s given.
Knowing these things about him, I asked if I could spend a
morning with him delivering meals on his “meals-on-wheels” route. I had not participated in this particular
ministry is some years, and even then, not regularly. But I was familiar with the process: hot
lunches cooked at a shelter or soup kitchen are delivered by volunteers to
shut-ins in the surrounding community.
The deliveries happen every week day at lunch time and are intended to
make sure that vulnerable or disadvantaged or disabled people who cannot make
their way to a food pantry would be sure to receive one hot meal a day.
We started that morning by picking up the meals from Feed My Sheep. Thirty-something clam shell Styrofoam
containers were loaded into the back of his car. But even before we left there, people were
reaching out to Mr. Ted. A lady on a
bike called out to him, “Mr. Ted, you
got any money you can give me?” He
walked toward her saying, “you know I don’t carry money around to give to y’all”
even as he was reaching for his wallet.
I don’t know how much he gave her, but he put his hand on her shoulder
and began to pray for her. They prayed
for several moments, then she laughed at something he said, and he made his way
to the car to begin the deliveries.
Mr. Ted is quite a conversationalist! He will tell you that I what I mean by that
is he talks a lot. He does! So, he talked to everyone on his route…all 29
people. He introduced me, he asked about
their recent surgeries or court cases.
He asked who was new to the neighborhood, or who had left. He didn’t pray for all of them, but he prayed
for many of them. He demonstrated
patience, compassion, and hopefulness as we moved from house to house.
“I’ve learned over the years many of their stories. Many of them on my route have died or moved away over the years. I’ve even driven up in the midst of death. Twice I’ve found family members in the front yard crying while EMT was inside the house. I know I’m right where I’m supposed to be. I’m able to pray for them.” He would speak “seriously” to some of them. “Are you staying sober? Don’t go out on the street again since you got your house back.” He worries about them being taken advantage of when he sees unusual people living there and he asks them questions too. He tells me what many of them are paying for rent in residences that are barely habitable, and it’s obvious that he’s angry at the injustice. “But it’s better than the street,” he concedes.
I asked him what he’s most concerned about. He says that the problems are getting worse,
not better. In the dozen years that he’s
been delivering meals, their routes have grown like crazy. “And we could double the route tomorrow if we
had the volunteers.” He wants the men
and women in his church community to step into ministries like this. He’s quick to name the people who run the
routes with him. He acknowledges that it
was late in life before he got involved, but that makes him more passionate. “I wish I had not wasted so much time.” He talks about the men and women he’s met on
the street with tears in his eyes. He
talks about the frustration and disappointment when they return to drugs or
alcohol or prostitution. “But the Lord
says, ‘Ted, you’ve broken my heart too.’
And I know I can’t give up on them because the Lord hasn’t given up on
me.”
We took up more than our allotted two hours that
Tuesday. We talked too much. But it was easy to see how the work could be
accomplished in that time frame. A two-hour
lunch break that impacts 30+ people. What
a return! Interested? Here’s what you
need to know…
No comments:
Post a Comment