Good morning…
How do we bridge the gap between “the haves and have nots” during this extended period of pandemic? Prayerfully with God, we travel the avenues blazed before our feet. We simply travel the avenues of connection opening before us. Our family provides just one example, your family provides another, and each stranger we scooch by in the grocery store provides still another example of outreach opportunity. We are each invited to travel the avenues of connection that present themselves to each of us uniquely.
This is just our family’s short list:
- Our small group from church is taking a weekly meal to the men recovering from addiction and homelessness at Trinity House. These important non-profit programs in our communities are not able to invite visitors to volunteer face to face like usual, but they still desperately need food and monetary donations to provide ongoing care for their residents.
- In the upcoming month, I have signed up to help pack food boxes for needy families through Action Ministries, once with our family of six, once with our Monday Bible study group, and once with our Friday Bible study group. These meal packs will help end hunger for over 7,000 kids during this extended time away from their school meal programs. If you live in Atlanta, sign yourself up in groups of less than ten, by visiting this link. If you live in another community, please explore similar programs aimed at helping children who are usually fed daily through their schools.
- A friend from our school is asking us to share non-perishable food items with an underprivileged neighborhood struggling to feed their families. She will pick up the collected items from our home to distribute to those in need, so please reach out me (sue@suetoyou.com) to arrange a time to drop off your non-perishables on our front porch.
- Our church has organized an outreach program for members who are seventy-five years and older. Each week we call the six people assigned to us, checking on them, seeing if they need errands run or a meal delivered from the church. All of my conversations have been delightful! Contact Leigh Ann Ayres to volunteer to reach out: 678.298.5070 or LeighAnnA@NorthsideUMC.org.
- For those unable to volunteer in hands-on ways, please prayerfully consider giving a financial donation to the non-profit agencies in your area serving those most vulnerable among us during this critical time of deep, deep need.
All of us are invited to travel the loving avenues opening before us. We are in this challenge time together, as we seek to flatten the lopsided curve of experience between those inconvenienced and those inescapably vulnerable, between those with financial margin and those without basic necessities, between those working from home, those laid off from their work, and those working overtime knee deep in great need. Let us each find creative ways to be God’s loving embrace to all of our neighbors, flattening the bell curve that too often divides us.
True devotion, the kind that is pure and faultless before God the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their difficulties and to keep the world from contaminating us (James 1:27, CEB).
…Sue…
P.S. Thank you to Corinne Adams for another gorgeous photo symbolizing bridges being hand-built during this mucky time.
