I recently returned from a week-long mission trip to New York City with my son Jack. In many ways this trip was more difficult than the 21 days I spent in Africa.
First was the 27-hour bus ride to get there. Thank you Greyhound for making this as comfortable as possible. I really appreciate that you now have Wi-Fi and charging stations in every seat. Not saying the bus will be my preferred mode of transportation but it was much nicer than I remember it being on my last trip in 1979.
Our mission goals were the usual: bring assistance to as many people as possible in the short time we were there. I learned a lot about poverty in America and let me tell you the picture was not pretty.
There are more than 51,000 homeless people every night in New York. Some are housed at shelters but many have nowhere to sleep except outside. This makes simple things like finding a bathroom a challenge. We worked all day during the hottest week of the summer. The temp would be say, 101 degrees but feel like 106…really is there a difference?
One day we worked in a soup kitchen serving spaghetti….I swear the kitchen was over 120 degrees! I won’t need a facial for six months. Steam and sweat made it feel like we stood in a rain shower fully clothed. Nights gave us no relief as we slept 30 people per room with no air conditioning. I brought only a camping mat while the young girl next to me had a two-foot thick air mattress. I had mattress envy every night! We just kept thanking God we only had to live like this for one week… what if there was no light at the end of the tunnel?
We met some of the most amazing people who spend every day in the service of others. There are the women taking care of babies of incarcerated mothers so they will be well adjusted and ready for their family once mom is released…the woman who has turned two city plots into a children’s garden so kids don’t think all their food comes from a can…there is the chef who gets up early to provide a four-course sitdown lunch to 100 people three times a week and the lady who runs a soup kitchen serving 200 people a day, six days a week! They all had two things in common—a positive attitude and a great smile! They made it fun for us to volunteer.
And don’t think the people we were helping were always happy and grateful; some were downright rude and cranky, but think about it…they have no control over where they sleep, where they shower and where their next meal is coming from so if they complain about the food, understand that this is the one place they can vent and feel heard.
I never really understood homelessness before…I have always assumed who if I didn’t have a home I have friends and family who would help me and I hope that my friends and family know that I would always be willing to help them. Why is that not the same in the Big City?
Imagine that a one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment costs an average of $1,600 a month. Now if this apartment already housed a family of four where do you put another person or family that is down on their luck? There just isn’t any room. It only takes a few months without a job to put you on the streets. Thank goodness there are people who are willing to do what they can to help.
We are so lucky to have a place to sleep, a place to bathe and food to eat…home never looked so good! My cup runneth over!
I threw my cup away
when I saw a child
drinking from his
hands at the trough.
Diogenes
Taste of Home columnist Sandy (Anderson) Holthaus lives on a farm in South Haven, MN with her husband, Michael, and their children Zoe, Jack and Ben. Her heart remains on the North Shore where she grew up with her parents, Art and LaVonne Anderson of Schroeder. She enjoys writing about her childhood and mixes memories with delicious helpings of home-style recipes.
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