Mother's Day at PATH Achieve

We've been privileged to plan dinner on Mother's Day at PATH Achieve since we began volunteering there.  This year, I think it would be a lot of fun to take a few grills over to PATH and go all out with an outdoor bbq -- not burgers and hot dogs, but ribs, chicken, links, wings, and tons of sides.  We need to plan some games for kids, as well as activities for the kid in all of us.  We'll also do some fun giveaways for the moms.  So mark Sunday, May 11 on your calendar.  It will be a great way to celebrate a special day.

Remembering

From Dr. King's last speech, delivered on the eve of his death, April 3, 1968, in support of 1300 striking Memphis sanitation workers:

It's all right to talk about "long white robes over yonder," in all of its symbolism. But ultimately people want some suits and dresses and shoes to wear down here. It's all right to talk about "streets flowing with milk and honey," but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here, and his children who can't eat three square meals a day. It's all right to talk about the new Jerusalem, but one day, God's preachers must talk about the New York, the new Atlanta, the new Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new Memphis, Tennessee. This is what we have to do.

Thoughts on the Eve of Neighbors Lunch

I'm really excited about tomorrow's lunch. From my perspective, it's a success already. I think some of the things that have me thinking tonight merit some reflection.

• Over thirty people are planning to attend! On Monday of this week, I was hoping we'd make it to twelve!
• Almost half of the attendees are not members of this church. That's a remarkable thing. A huge step in opening our doors and being a known, relevant neighbor in the community.
• We received a request from a university student in Ireland who is writing a dissertation on homelessness. She can't attend, obviously, but we're sending her a DVD of the event.
• The Leader and News Press gave us a huge boost. I was doubtful a letter to the editor would be published on such short notice, but both papers were able to run the piece, and it doubled our attendance.
• By "coincidence," the Burbank City Council happened to form a subcommittee on Tuesday night to investigate stepping up the City's services for the homeless. The news coverage hit the same day as our letter to the editor. This issue is on the hearts and minds of a lot of people in our community. We are at the front of it, and it's no accident.
• God has brought us to this time and place to do something in our community. The relationships we have developed over the past two years with PATH made it possible to move quickly on this issue when the number of chronically homeless people coming through our doors rose. It's something to be excited about, but we need to remember that along with such a calling as this comes a tremendous responsibility to rise to the challenge.

Some questions on my mind tonight going into tomorrow...

• What are the challenges within ourselves we must overcome to be effective servants to this population?
• What external challenges will we face in this service?
• There's one guy, in particular, I'm thinking of. Will we be able to help him?
• Tonight Diana and I did some prep work at the church building. Someone had bedded down for the night on the front porch. Will the time we spend together tomorrow honor him?
• What if we run out of food?! (just being honest)
• What happens next?

Neighbors Lunch Is Saturday!

Our first Neighbors Lunch is just two days away. I'm very excited to kick this off, especially with this first topic. It's something very practical not only for our community, but specifically for our church!

Chronic homelessness touches us all. Everyone has had an encounter with a chronically homeless person. And oftentimes it happens at the church building. People in dire straits look to churches for help. That means we have to know how to offer it, and this is a population with very specific needs that require very specific strategies.

That's why we've invited PATH to give us a crash course on this population along with the ins and outs of outreach. Please join us for lunch this Saturday, from 12:00 to 1:30pm. Go to the website to RSVP, or join our Facebook event, where you can also invite your friends.

Save the Date: March 1st

It's coming together! March 1st at 12pm will be our first "community lunch" event. Rudy Salinas, Director of Community Outreach for PATH, will be our guest speaker as we discuss how to reach out to the homeless in our communities. I'm excited about the way this has come together so quickly.

Now, I need some help. The plan is to host a lunch event like this once every quarter. This first one will focus on outreach to the homeless. Future topics might include financial planning, education, parenting, book discussions... you tell me. Think about contacts and friends you have who are "experts" in a given area. Would they be willing to share some thoughts over lunch? The idea is to find things that interest a broad array of people in our area.

Secondly, the quarterly lunches need a name. Community Lunch is a little blah, I think, too generic. I'm toying with Neighbors Lunch. These will hopefully be broad enough to draw a crowd, but still foster an intimate, connective experience during which people will be reminded that neighborhoods and cities are made up of individuals who can become acquaintances, friends, and brothers and sisters.

So give it a shot. I need your help.

Let's Be Students

Last week I went to PATH's second Faith Matters luncheon.  I was on a mission this time.  We've had a slight rise in the number of homeless men stopping by lately.  While it's been great to have these guys stop in, borrow a couple bucks, trade names, and offer a blessing to them on their way, we're woefully unprepared to truly reach out to people who are wrestling with the unimaginable difficulties of addiction, hunger, mental illness, and outdoor city living day in and day out.  We can do our best to offer a friendly face and some temporary company, but we're not trained or equipped to go much beyond that.  I wanted to talk to someone at PATH about this to see if we could somehow get wiser to all this so that we can help a little more.

As usual, PATH has come through.

In the next month or so, we'll be scheduling a session during which one of PATH's outreach specialists will train us in the basics of interaction and assistance to people who are chronically homeless.  We'll learn about safety, respect, referral services, and other topics that will help us be more effective neighbors to this population.  I'm really excited about this opportunity.  Stay tuned for more details.