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Finding Just One

10/25/2020

It was another 90+ degree day
The was sun beaming down as we joined Maryhaven's outreach team to homeless camps, providing summer relief.

We loaded the truck with bottled water, hand sanitizer, masks, and new undergarments fresh out the package. Off the path and into the wooded areas we went in search of neighbors to meet and people in need.

Finding One
As we reached and entered several camps many of them were empty, at least for the day as their occupants were out pursuing food and other necessities. Then we came to one camp where a group was huddled in a tent, talking and resting. "Can we offer you any bottled water or supplies?" Thankful for the relief they joined us heading back to the truck. This gave us some time to get to know them a little and see how they were doing.

Helping One, Matters
One by one we handed each of them supplies and they turned back to the camp. One lady was the last to head back and I asked, "is there anything you would like prayer for?"

Pausing for a moment she responded, "I need to get free from drugs". "OK let's pray." As I took time to pray and call on God, she began to lean in as if to say "I'm ready for change." Afterward she went over to the counselor and requested to sign up for housing. Signing up for housing also meant committing to drug rehab and change! Maryhaven will surround her with the support resources to help with her change and moving forward.

Everyone Can Help One
Is there anyone you know in need of help? Do you see people you don't know with a need? The answer is likely yes, looking at the challenges facing society today. Can't help everyone? No problem, just find one to share the love and kindness of God with.

Proverbs 14:31
"Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.

Let's take time to honor God, by finding one to help in their time of need.

Acknowledgements
A big thank you to our local Walmart for helping sponsor undergarments for those in need!

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Author

Stephen Neal is the Executive Director for Consider the Poor. He has a passion for extending God's love to those in need and has pursued that passion through various levels of ministry leadership over the last 20 years. He has also served in various corporate management roles with a specialty in problem solving, operational excellence and breakthrough performance.

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Racism Has Killed Too Many

6/25/2020

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George Floyd. Ahmaud Arbery. Breonna Taylor. David McAtee. Tony McDade. Eric Garner. Trayvon Martin. Michael Brown.

And Darrell Fields, an amazingly talented homeless guitarist who was burned to death in his tent in Los Angeles. And so many other disproportionately homeless Blacks who have died without any obituary, sometimes without anyone even knowing their name.

And Black children who are twice as likely to die of diabetes.
And Black babies dying in infancy at twice the rate of White babies.
And Black mothers dying in childbirth two to three times more often than White mothers.
And Blacks dying of COVID-19 at significantly higher rates than Whites.

Racism has killed too many.

We cannot consider the poor without acknowledging that so many Americans are poor, and kept poor, due to systemic racism. The murders of George Floyd and too many others have shown us, being Black in America should not be hazardous to your health. Black Americans are significantly more likely to suffer injustice, to live in poverty, to be homeless, and to be food insecure. Life expectancy for Black Americans is lower than any other racial group, because racism kills.

Racism has killed too many.

We live in the richest country in the world, but somehow Black Americans and minority communities see little of that wealth. During the pandemic, many Black Americans have been dubbed essential workers, ensuring that White Americans have groceries delivered to their doorsteps, while living in a food desert themselves. They're delivering dinners to the doorsteps of beautiful homes while being denied access to home ownership themselves. They're risking their health so that White America can stay safe, while their jobs do not provide them with enough income to afford health care.

Racism has killed too many.

It’s not enough for us to call out the systemic and embedded racism that privileges White America. We must acknowledge our own complicity in supporting a system that maintains power by exploiting Black America. Far too often we shy away from terms like racism for fear of offending the privileged, and fail to amplify the brave voices seeking social justice through direct action. If we focus solely on feel-good, non-threatening stories of hope and salvation we ignore and even whitewash the discrimination and bigotry. We need to hear stories of hope to lift us up. But sometimes we need stories that bring us down to Earth and remind us how much work there is to do. As Proverbs 31:8-9 tells us, we must “speak out for those who cannot speak” for themselves and “defend the rights of the poor and the needy.”

Racism has killed too many.

The conversations we’re having with each other, and ourselves, place everyone at an undeniable inflection point. We can choose to fight racism, to be “anti-racist” as Ibram X. Kendi so eloquently says, or we have chosen to support racism. We can no longer be “not racist” or “not political” or “not controversial” or “above the fray” or “color blind”. In choosing to fight racism we may lose friends and supporters, but we cannot un-see what we have seen.

Racism has killed too many.

Join us in the fight

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What if we cared?

1/2/2020

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I recently joined Maryhaven on their outreach to local homeless camps around Columbus. Maryhaven is a treatment center that also provides crisis care and homeless outreach. Maryhaven routinely visits homeless camps, offering shelter and the first steps to recovery and self-sufficiency.

These services by Maryhaven and others are much needed as homelessness in Columbus has been on the rise despite a booming economy and low jobless rates (Columbus Dispatch, 2018). When the economy is strong and unemployment is low, it’s easy to think anyone who is homeless must not want to work or have a roof over their head. During my day with Maryhaven, I did not encounter individuals that met this description. The kind and warm souls we met wanted and needed the help that Maryhaven provides every single day.

Would you go?

We go about our lives following daily patterns, sticking to the routines we know and are comfortable with. But what if for a moment we take a look under the bridge, along the freeway, in the often overlooked spaces of society? What would you find? Who…would you find?

What would you find?

For a few hours I did exactly this, following Maryhaven’s outreach team led by Thom, off the beaten path to find people in need of shelter. What did we find? In areas obscured by vegetation and woods, we found entire communities of homeless people.

Yes, entire communities! Except for the tents and make-shift shelters, these communities were like any other community. People knew each other by name, looked out for one another, and shared together in hardships as well as happiness and hope.

“Outreach. Outreach. Would you like shelter” Thom and Leon would call out as we entered the area, not to startle people but letting them know we were in the area and our intentions. Some were out away from their shelters at the time, but for those who were there they were eager for the invitation.

Who would you meet?

James was one of the first people we met, and he seemed genuinely happy to see us. “Thank you for coming out here to check on us.” He was in disbelief that people were spending their time to come check on them. James had constructed a shelter made of tents and tarps nestled just beyond a fence line. He was in his early thirties, and taking care of a younger brother who was an amputee. After both of their parents died, they moved up from North Carolina in hopes of finding work and starting over.

We offered James to come back to the van with us to get some winter clothing and blankets. The temperature was freezing that day! Knowing that many of the people we met would be insufficiently dressed for the cold weather, I tried to do without my hat and gloves for as long as possible. I didn’t last very long at all. Fortunately, we were able to provide James with enough hats, glove liners and winter gloves, socks, and warm blankets for both he and his brother. I could see a sense of sincere gratitude on James’ face as he received these items.

What happened next was just as much of a revelation for me as the trip into the woods itself. Thom wanted to make sure James was aware of resources available to help them. Thom ran through a list of about ten different services to which James said he was not aware of a single one.
It’s easy to assume that in this “information age” everyone would be able to just “Google” their problems and find all the available resources to help them without any difficulty. But how many people are we missing when we assume this? How many people could be helped out of homelessness, or even avoid homelessness altogether, if there was someone to point them toward already available resources at a critical time?

What can we do to help spread the word and show that we care?

What would we do differently if we cared?

As we spoke with people that day and invited them to apply for shelter, their stories were very similar. These were smart, articulate, kind people. Many previously had great jobs; one was even a licensed minister. Then something happened: an illness, a job loss, a move to another city that didn’t work out. Everyone just wanted a return to normalcy, a chance to have a stable life once more. As one person responded to our questioning, “Yes, I’m tired of living like this! I want an appointment (to be approved for shelter housing) right now!”

My favorite moment that day came when we met Ricardo, who was living in a sleeping bag under the cover of a bridge. As with the others, he gladly accepted the offer to apply for shelter. Then we offered him winter clothing. He told us that he already had a hat and gloves but he needed socks. I handed him a pair of socks fresh from the package, and Ricardo’s face lit up as if I handed him an amazing Christmas gift! Even in the cold, it warmed my heart to see such joy on his face receiving those socks!

What if we cared?

What if we cared enough to help, and give our time to lift someone else up?

What if we cared enough to hold accountable and require the same of our elected officials?

What if we cared enough to give someone a second chance who may have made a wrong decision?

I wonder what would happen…if we all cared.

Acknowledgements:
- Thank you Thom Adams and Maryhaven Columbus for guiding our trip into the community
- Thank you Walmart (Lewis Center location) for your generous donation of winter hats and gloves

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God Gave the Increase! 1 Corinthians 3:6

12/23/2019

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Everyday when we returned from in the town or city, we walked down this road to the house where we were staying. The Pastor’s family owned a home in this village, and whenever he came to the area he would say hello and talk with the nearby families. He was planting seeds.
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This woman would sometimes greet us in the mornings leaving out or when we returned later that day. One day she stopped us, and began talking with Pastor Babu. We stopped to hear the challenges she and her sons were facing.
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Since the passing of her husband, family members tried to take advantage of her claiming they had right to some land the widow’s family owned. When she saw us going by that day she wanted us to pray and ask God to help her.
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We prayed with her and her two sons, asking God to intervene in the situation, and that the family would deal fairly with her. We watered the seeds that Pastor Babu had been planting. After the prayer I asked if they were Christians, and the Pastor translated saying that they were not.
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Because he had already been sewing seeds of kindness and love to the villagers, their heart was open to an opportunity to pray for them, and also the gospel. That day the widow and her household accept Christ into their hearts and began living for Him! God gave the increase!
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I checked back with the Pastor one year later to see how they were doing. God answered the prayer and there is no more dispute over the land. And they are now living their lives for God! Each day we can plant seeds of love and kindness in the lives of others, trust God for someone to come along and water them, and God will give the increase.

#love #kindness #truth #gospel #mission #missiontrip #india #bible #Jesus #God #saltandlight #wectp #ctp #seeds #plant #water #increase #prayer #answeredprayer #godanswersprayer

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The God Who Sees

7/13/2019

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Have you ever wondered, "Does God see what's going on"? You probably have, as I have, and many others have.

I remember years ago sitting in church hearing a Minister preach about God who "sits over the circle of the earth". He said, "God sees the whole picture". This fascinated me to consider how God sees everything and works all things together for our good, as he highlighted in Romans 8. But's it's not always easy to see at first how God is working all things together for good. Fast forward some 10 years or so later, I encounter the "God Who Sees" in a more real way than I ever had before!

For years I had desired to take missions trips, visit people of other nations, and share God's hope and love with them. But I put it off, because of work, because of family, because of ministry, because of lack of experience, because, because, because! But in the spring of 2015 I started getting a strong desire to look beyond "because". One Sunday morning during the before-service prayer time, I started getting an impression to launch out into the deep. I had studied this in God's word before, so I knew He was calling me to go somewhere to do something for Him. But where? And to do what? I began praying about this and even at times asking God did He really need me? After all, He's God!

I continued for months praying, asking God what it was that I was supposed to do. I was clueless, and unable to do anything without God. Then in December after months of prayer I heard from God "Filipe" and "Sao Paulo". Pastor Filipe Guimaraes is a missionary from Sao Paulo, Brazil, who visited the United States a few years earlier and did outreach with our church. I began praying and soon reached out to him about potentially coming to visit and do missions work. He welcomed the plans to come visit and we began praying about doing missions work together.

I now knew where, but why did God want me to go? Maybe to gain training in missions I thought, as Pastor Filipe is experienced in planning missions and leading a missionary organization. We setup a time of April for the missions trip and I continue to pray about the why, God's purpose. Again God spoke to me during a Sunday worship, this time that I was going to Brazil for revival! Alright I thought, excitedly! Somebody's going to be healed, somebody's going to be delivered, somebody's going to be.....oh wait. After just a few moments of praising God for the His purposes reality set in. "I can't do that." I can't get anybody healed or delivered. But that's what God said, so I began believing and praying in this direction, that God would do the impossible which I could not do. He even gave me a sermon to preach out of Luke 5 about the people who gathered at the pool hoping to be healed.

Then the battles came. I battled to continue believing that God would do something I had not personally experienced before, and I battled to get all my Visa paperwork approved in time for the trip. With God's help the paperwork did come, just days before my scheduled flight! I arrived on a Sunday morning and Pastor Filipe let me know I was to begin ministering by preaching that night's Sunday service. Later that day I shared my sermon plans with him so that he could prepare to help translate to Portuguese. He paused to consider the topic of the sermon, but did not say much.

That night I ministered my first sermon on a mission trip, in a foreign nation, with a translator, asking a crowd of people in a community hall "Will You Be Made Whole" by putting faith in Jesus Christ. At the conclusion of the message I gave the request for those to acknowledge who would like to put their faith in Christ. Several persons acknowledged their need for Christ and we prayed with them to accept Him.

Then we asked the people there who needed to put their faith in God to heal their bodies? There was a woman sitting in the front who had never attended the Pastor's services before. She came forward requesting prayer. To this day I don't even recall what her ailment was, but after we prayed for her in Jesus name, she was better. Seeing her example of believing, others started to come for prayer. And one by one, God started to heal them all! Foot pain, knee pain, back pain, regulation of blood sugar levels, problems sleeping. Pastor Filipe would interpret, then we would pray together and believe God for healing. One person came up and we heard God say "exercise". I asked, "Have you been exercising" to which she said, "Yes the doctor said I am supposed to be exercising"!

What I didn't know, was that all these months leading up to the visit, Pastor Filipe and the church had been praying for physical healing for their bodies. He never told me their prayer request. But the God who sees, knew what they needed. He knew what I didn't know! The last to come up for prayer was the Pastor's wife. She was pregnant and also suffering from back pains. As with the others, God healed her of the back pain. The next day the Pastor Filipe and his wife went to the doctor to get something checked out. At dinner that night he explained that his wife also had been having some inner problems in the stomach area. The doctor confirmed that she was now healed with no sign of problems! When we prayed for her back, we never prayed for her stomach. But the God who sees, answered their prayers to be made whole.

You can trust in the God who sees to hear and answer your prayers!

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Finding Just One

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Racism Has Killed Too Many

What if we cared?

God Gave the Increase! 1 Corinthians 3:6

The God Who Sees

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