Christmas Eve '06

My husband, Vince, has been heavily involved with this homeless outreach program. For months now they’ve been taking food and supplies into the city every Sunday. They have developed a rapport with many of them and Cathy invited them to worship with us on Christmas Eve morning. Three of them took up the offer.

They were well received and warmly welcomed. They praised God and worshiped right beside us. Someone at the worship service even asked Cathy to pass on a $100 bill to each of the three.

After Worship, our families joined Whiskey, Martin and Carla for Christmas dinner in the church hall. Carol had set the tables with white tablecloths and beautiful linen Christmas napkins. There was turkey and ham and all the trimmings.

It was my first time to meet these people that my husband has come to know and care about. We chatted and they talked about their enjoyment of worship, especially of the music, and of other church services that Martin and Carla had attended regularly in San Antone last year before they came to Kansas City. Whiskey also enjoyed the carols that were sung. Whiskey was not "whiskeyed" that morning but appears off balance a bit. He has a balance problem resulting from an old injury received when someone attacked him years earlier. He has been wandering more than half his life; for him it is a lifestyle yet he was sweet and humble.

There were also Christmas presents for all of them, specifically chosen for each of them (and for those that didn’t come, as well). There were tarps, and sleeping bags and backpacks and blankets and buckets and flashlights. All of the uneaten food was packed up and delivered back under the railroad bridge where the rest of them were awaiting the Christmas dinner.

The whole morning was one of the best Christmas moments I have ever had. I learned that homeless people are just that: people without a home... not much different than lots of people I know who do have homes. They just don't have the "Fall back" system that most of us have in place for that time when disaster hits, emotional, physical or financial. I felt moved and blessed to have been a small part of it all.