This Christmas was the best of my life, even better than the Christmas when I was 3 years old and we got a puppy. What I regret is that I am 48 now and this is the first time I have participated in serving the homeless on a holiday or any other day.
I arrived at Breakthrough Urban Ministries Men’s Shelter on Christmas Day with my food and drink offering in hand. After pounding on the door for fifteen minutes, I got no response. Walking up and down the street in the Edgewater neighborhood in Chicago and peering in windows and rattling doors made my thoughts turn to the fact that just down the street my Buick LeSabre was parked and at any moment I could get away. There would be others peering through darkened windows who weren’t that lucky.
Eventually I found the right place and gathered with about five Creekers who were there to serve. In the true fashion of Willow
While some of the shelter’s residents had been given day passes to visit their family, the men who go remained sat and talked to each other or played Scrabble until it was time to say grace and begin the meal.
After all the residents had been served, the volunteers fixed plates for themselves and sat in empty seats at various tables. I joined a table with people who had been there from a couple of weeks to a couple of years. I began to realize just how close most of us are to their same plight. There was no insanity here. No dereliction of ‘the system’. There were just a bunch of people who were just one paycheck away from having a home. How many of us are just one paycheck away from losing our homes? I know that I have been there.
These folks all have good times, bad times and ordinary times. So do I. They have despair and shame; I do, too. They have hopes and dreams and I have hopes and dreams. I also know that God was there on Christmas Day. And He was there for all of us.
Victoria Eastwood
