What an eye opener!

Last night I took my youth group girls (6-8th graders) along with the 8th grade boys (4 of them) and their leader, Jeff, to a homeless mission, Degage, in downtown Grand Rapids to drop off coats and blankets that we as a church had collected. We parked about 100 yards away from the building because there were vehicles parked in front of the building. This means that we had to walk in front of one building, Goodwill, and cross over one intersection to get to the building. So we park and get the boxes out of the back of my Suburban. The boys took the really big box and the girls took the smaller box. These boxes were open on top so that people could just drop the coats and blankets inside them.

Degage feeds the homeless at 7:30pm and we arrived a little before 7pm which meant there were a lot of homeless people standing around on the corner waiting to go inside. Well the minute they seen us they pretty much surrounded us to see "whatcha got there" and they started to just take stuff right out of the boxes. Now I have been here before so I was slightly more "prepared" for what we were going to be seeing then the kids but I didn't expect people to start helping themselves. The kids were so taken back that they literally froze, eyes big as saucers, while the men continued to help themselves to the contents in their boxes. Jeff and I quickly came to the rescue (not that we had left the kids but our group and the homeless group had quickly become one big group) and moved the kids along to put an end to it but the kids were still overwhelmed. By the time we got in the building I was laughing and explained to the lady, Joy, who was going to give us the tour that we didn't have quite as much to donate as we did when we got out of the car. One of the boxes only had one coat left in it.

I was also asked by one gentleman if I had just $1.50 that I could spare. I hadn't even taken a purse for that very reason and explained to him that I had nothing on me. One of my girls leaned in and whispered in my ear "I have $7 in my pocket may I give it to these people?" I quickly,quietly said no and told her I would explain later. I told Joy about this while she was giving us our tour and asked her if she could explain to all the kids why that wouldn't have been a good idea. She jumped right in and explained it very well and told the kids if the wanted to give them something they could buy food vouchers and then give them to the people that way they wouldn't be able to use it on alcohol or drugs.

Needless to say the ride home the girls couldn't stop talking so it gave me a lot to discus with them. Our Youth Pastor sends the 8th graders every year and the 6th and 7th graders know this so they look forward to it. My daughter, Anna, was one of the girls to go tonight and she would not let me forget that tonight was THE night. It is funny then to take them and see that they really had no idea what they were in for. I was not looking forward to it because I had gone 2 years ago with a group and we had a man knocking on our van window asking for stuff before we even got out and I hadn't been there before that and it caught me way off guard. As soon as we explained to him we didn't have any money he left but it had shaken up the groups of kids we brought then also. I do believe it is a good experience for the kids I just wish I would have remembered to pray with the kids when we got in the Suburban before we left church and prepared them a little for what we were heading out to do. It would have helped to prepare me also.

I also made a mental note to tell Brandon (the youth pastor) that next time we should bring the coats and blankets in closed bags so it doesn't draw as much attention. (chuckles)

Smiles!