I don’t have any pictures for this blog. It just isn’t right to take pictures of handing out a small gift to someone in hard times.
Usually we go out Christmas Eve afternoon and find homeless to hand them to. This year Jason worked until 2. By the time he got home and I finished the baking, we barely made it to the 6 pm Christmas Eve service.
So, we decided to drive around downtown I hopes of finding 15 people to bless. And indeed we did manage to find some. It was a rougher crowd this year, since it was cold and late and most were inside for the night in the various shelters.
We did however find some really needy people to bless. We had 2 warm blankets and we gave them to the first 2 people we saw hunkered down for the night.
Kieran got a talking to from a gentleman who had already been generous with the liquor. He was told about 50x to stay in school until he was 25. But I was super proud of Kieran. He looked this gentleman in the eye the entire time and he shook his hand several times. And although even I was uncomfortable he didn’t show it to this gentleman.
We found a couple sleeping in front of the bottle depot doors with 4 baskets of bottles. They said they’d have to stay there for 2 days. They weren’t willing to let the bottles go so they could have a warm place to sleep. We gave them each a bag.
We found a gentleman who was trying to stay away from security and we blessed him too.
Karyssa and I blessed a gentleman who was trying to get to the Drop in Center. He was a couple blocks away. He fell over twice and we helped him back up and by the time we were across the street from the Center with him, helping him stay on his feet, a worker from the Drop In saw and came and helped him the rest of the way. The worker knew him by name and helped him.
Fifteen people were the recipients of our gifts tonight.
However, the real blessing was all ours. We left feeling humble and grateful for all we have. We wished we could have done more. Every year it is the same. And somehow every year we manage to do a little bit more.
But this year our gifts went to the most desperate of the homeless. And it sure felt great to be able to help and see how the warm socks and blankets and cookies were sure appreciated.