On Saturday evening we open our doors at Community of Joy to 20 homeless men from Salisbury. We will be hosting them for 2 weeks. Bethany Lutheran and Beacon of Light Churches ( our neighboring churches) will help us. We couldn't do it without them!
The men come in at 5 p.m. and then we feed them a delicious meal at 6 p.m.. They sleep the night in our sanctuary on cots (an advantage of using chairs not pews!) then the get a hot breakfast at 6 a.m. and are out the door with a bag lunch at 7 a.m. It is a lot of work and takes many hands to pull it off! It is one way we live out our mission at Community of Joy - "Jesus Christ calls us to actively reach out with God's love, hospitality, hope, healing, and peace."
I am thankful for all the people who step up and give so generously of their time and resources to host the men.
I have had a couple people wonder why we do it... when some of the guys we host don't appear to be doing much to get out of their situations. My response is that this is not our concern. Sure, we would like to see them break free of their homeless situation and all that things the keep them in that cycle. But even Jesus said, we will always have the poor with us. So, I think our role for some is simply to offer them a warm place to spend the cold winter nights, a few meals, God's love and hospitality, and our prayers.
Looking forward to these next two weeks!
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