Sundays In My City

Wow! Today was awesome. Well, wait a minute, I might need to clarify that statement. The last half of today was awesome. The first half sucked rotten eggs.

The first half of the day included Bob and I fighting like two wild monkeys. Now, this might sound like a normal thing for an old married couple like us but the truth is, we rarely fight. Oh, we have our disagreements but fighting, nope. Except for this morning. It was on, baby. I seriously was so mad that I told him I was ready to get in the car and never come back. Monkeys can be very stupid when fighting over a bruised banana. Yes, I was a very stupid monkey this morning. Sorry Bob. I should have never been so ugly to you. Even if you are a big, hairy ape. I’m just saying …

Now, the second half of the day, well it rocked. Rob & Abbey, our surrogate children, have joined forces with us on this homeless adventure. They had already started off on this project on their own weeks ago, so it was easy for us all to come together. Along with our eleven year old, Miranda, and my prairie chick friend, Jana, we all headed off to the City Rescue Mission around two this afternoon.

 We rescheduled the BBQ due to the snow, which never materialized I might add, and went to plan B. Rob and Abbey picked up fifty McDonald’s double cheeseburgers and we picked up fifty pairs of gloves.

The last few times we did our giveaways, we all stayed in our cars, doors locked and handed the items out our windows. Not today. I mean seriously, if we are going to make any difference, shouldn’t we stop being cowards and get to know these people?

That’s when the amazing part of the day happened. I was able to get out of the car and talk to people. I met men and women who were more than willing to talk and give us direction without realizing that was what they were doing. I made a connection with three women in particular, who allowed me to ask them a ton of questions. They were open and honest and really gave me new insight like never before.

Once the food and gloves were gone, our group went to dinner to discuss the days happenings and what it meant for the next time. I am pretty sure we were all talking at the same time. It was just too wonderful to have connected with PEOPLE. Not homeless people. Just people, like us. People who have the same needs and fears as we do. People who want to connect with us just as much as we want to connect with them. We all agreed on some very important issues over dinner. We agreed that we can’t change the fact that there always have been and always will be homeless people. We agreed that handing items out of our car windows is not enough. What we are called to do is about so much more than giving stuff away. It’s about giving ourselves away. It’s about relationship.

Again, we can’t change the fact that there always have been and always will be homeless people. But what if we can change the number of homeless people to one less?

We spread the word through the streets that we would be back on January 17th, no matter what the weatherman said. We told everyone we will be grilling hot dogs, serving chili and having a tailgate party to get to know them better. We also told the women we will be handing out special goodie bags with personal items just for them.

Life is so very good. Even when you start your day like a stupid monkey fighting over a bruised banana. Life is good.