Mission Norm

50 men. 24 women. 23 children. One cannot help but wonder what is happening to our local society when so many from so small a community - in relationship to Portland or Los Angeles - are so desperate as to seek shelter with the Mission. Those figures are our daily average this year to date. But I am thankful that they do for it gives to us a wonderful opportunity to minister to the foundational needs and those are spiritual.
Do we really care about the physical needs? My oh my, yes we do. We serve almost 6,000 nutritious meals each month to anyone who is hungry. We have our own GED program that works in conjunction with our local Community College. We work in Job Skills Training and Budgeting. Bible-based Counseling is done each day. We work hard to not only restore a sense of self-value to individuals but also provide them with all of the personal tools to reintegrate into society as a person of worth and value.
Our local community does an excellent job in expressing and showing demonstrated deeds in caring for those who are in difficulty. Certainly, there is a just sense of frustration over those whose own actions put them in need of help; especially medical and financial. But those same people are some of the ones who make it possible for us to show true compassion.
It is an all-encompassing work but one which I am only too thankful to have the opportunity to do. Our Lord is most gracious - and that does not always mean the easiest to serve. He is good and that is something that I have to constantly remember in the difficult times.
- posted by Keith @ 7:21 AM

Thanksgiving. For what do we have to be thankful? You ought to see the mess that I have to shovel through every day and you wouldn't be quite so quick to tell me to be thankful!
Spoken like a true self-centered person. I ran across the following quote a number of years ago and it made me stop and wonder for what it is that I am truly thankful. May you be encouraged as well as challenged as you read this quote from our dear brother.
"April 1886 - "We have been broken up and moved six times. We have been despoiled personally as well as despoiled of our property. We thought when we moved across the Missouri River and had paid for our homes in Kansas we were safe but in a few years the white man wanted our country. We had good farms, built comfortable houses and big barns. We had school for our children and churches where we listened to the same gospel the white man listens to. The white man came into our country from Missouri and drove our cattle and horses away and if our people followed them they were killed. We try to forget these things. But we would not forget that the white man brought us the blessed gospel, the Christian's hope. This more than pays for all we have suffered" (Charles Journeycake, The Last Chief of the Delawares).
- posted by Keith @ 6:21 PM