So many times we fall into the trap of thinking that Christmas is about giving. Well, this Christmas I have received some special gifts.

1. My beautiful wife and children– as always they are patient with a husband and dad who is gone too much and seems to be falling apart at 41.

2. Following the day we distributed our 250 food baskets to the community, an elderly man came and walked over a mile in the rain. He wanted to return a check he had found in his basket. His honesty and tenacity to return the check gave me a wonderful gift. Poverty does not mean a lack of honesty!

3. The young girl who gave me a candy cane because we had helped her family have Christmas.

4. To see the smiling faces of two young boys who the doctors had said would not live through the injuries sustained in a house fire. I held them today.

Merry Christmas it will be…… from my heart to your’s…. know the peace of the season!

You are probably like me… you have seen the ads for some old man who needs food. It is a constant reminder to me that there is no one look for a hungry person. As a matter of fact, it is a look that many of our neighbors demonstrate.

Did you know, according to the USDA, that 8 out of 10 kids in my neighborhood do not get at least two meals a day when they are not in school? That look of hunger breaks our hearts. Hungry kids in our own hometown.

We have no problem in finding resources to build a new football stadium, yet children in it’s shadow will be hungry. I am a football fan, and most of the time love the Colts , but our greatest resource is not athletics; it’s our children. We have got to do a better job of caring for them.

With the recent closure of the only grocery store in our neighborhood, where are our families to shop? Walgreens, Speedway????? Thankfully, Kroger is partnering with us to help fund a shuttle service for us to take families twice a week. Yet the face of hunger continues to grow in our neighborhood.

My goal through this blog is for you to get a glimpse of poverty and a better understanding of this hydraulic of poverty that sucks our neighbors in and keeps them from breaking out. That is where friends like you and others can help us break them free from the shackles of poverty.

jay

There is an old John Lennon song that says, “And so this is Christmas… another year over, a new one’s just begun…” Yes, we are closing on quite a year, 2006. We saw the opening of our new center, expanded programs, many new faces receiving love here at Shepherd. Yet, we also said goodbye to a special family through a violent act that led to the murder of seven people. An entire family…gone. We’ve seen quite a bit this year. I joke for boring days. Yet, we live in a neighborhood that lives in crisis. And so that is when we respond in a deeper and more special way. We buried a four month old this week. yet, another tragedy. But as a staff, we do grow tired… and maybe at times mutter, “and so this Christmas.” Just another thing to get through… I hope not. We want to celebrate this special Season of Hope… a season of giving. We are thankful for the many who help us help others. We are merely the funnel of love from people to those in our neighborhood needing that love.

I am thankful to be able to serve here. Come by and see us. See that love in action.