Saturday February 13th, 2010 our BYU married-student ward had a Valentine's party. Olive Garden catered the event. Afterwords, my wife was in the kitchen cleaning up with some of the other activities committee members and there was still a lot of food that needed to be given out. Someone suggested to just throw it away and my wife got very flustered and said, "we can't just throw all this food away, every Sunday we have a homeless man who comes to Church. We should give it to him," The next day at church I searched out the homeless man who always seats himself in the foyer. I told him that we had missed him at the party last night and that we had something for him. I walked with him to the kitchen and gave him two large containers of chicken parmesan and spaghetti. I was in awe as he took out 2 Smith's plastic grocery bags and put both containers into its own bag. I asked him If I could give him a ride to wherever he needed to go. As he sat in my 2008 Nissan Versa, I felt so guilty for the simple commodities that I have. Trust me, a Versa is not something to brag about, but as we sat at the stop-light waiting for the light to turn green, I felt embarrassed for life's little "luxuries" that I had. He told me his name was Douglas and that he was from New York and Virginia. He couldn't have been older than 45 and when I asked him his age, he told me he was 67 years old. He said that he comes out here to Utah during the winter and spring just to enjoy the snow and fresh air. I didn't look at Douglas as the black man who wears the Indianapolis Colts coat everywhere he goes. I didn't look at him as the homeless man who sits on the street corner on most occasions that I pass by. I didn't get offended by the unpleasant aroma protruding through his worn out clothing. I looked at Douglas as my brother and felt an overwhelming love for him. We pulled into the Amenities Motel off of 300 South in Provo and I reached into my wife's purse and pulled out $14 dollars. He smiled and was grateful that I had given him food, a ride, and some money.
The drive back home was very humbling and I pondered what had taken place. Not all of us are capable of flying to Haiti to help out those in need, but we all have neighbors that are in need of some kind of help. You don't have to ask someone to help them and many people who do need help will not tell you that they need help because they do not want to feel like they are being a burden. Help those who are in your everyday life, because if you ignore their needs who will help them if everyone is worried about helping those in other parts of the world and not worried about the well-being of those in their neighborhood? Have you given a homeless man a ride lately?
good idea... i've given several people rides before, but not a homeless man yet. in LA, i gave a lot of homeless people pass-along cards, and food, and such. we were not allowed to give out money, but i bought one guy a lunch.
ReplyDeleteyou're right, we need to focus on our own community first before we can help others overseas.
It's somewhat sad that a huge catastrophe has to happen to open our eyes and hearts. I like this example of seeking out those in need around us.
ReplyDeleteMy dad is in the military and every Thanksgving his squadron goes to a local homeless shelter to put on a 3 course restaurant style meal. Thank you for sharing your wonderful experience, you are a great example.
ReplyDeleteExcellent Point there is a lot of good that can be done right here where we live. We just need to be mindful of it.
ReplyDeleteThis was a very insightful post. I sometimes have a tendency to rationalize my discourteous behavior (i.e. "Oh, well If I give him money he'll just go blow it on some beer" etc.), but who am I to judge? I need to pay closer attention to those around me instead of thinking up reasons to ignore them.
ReplyDeleteagain, being abrasive and going against the flow here, the economist in me wonders whether giving bums rides actually helps or if it encourages their bumming behavior. ever see southpark's "night of the walking homeless"? classic example of personal incentive come back to bite you.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your blog! I think it is easy to forget how much good we can do right here in our own area. There are so many people around who need our help, but we need to be willing to help them!
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