Did you ever stop to help the homeless? Did you ever read their sign and stop and give them a few dollars? Did you ever wonder what they were going to do with the money you did give them?

Well recently Josh and I began working with a local church group to try and help the homeless population in our community. I thought it was not only a really good way to get involved with a local church, but also a good way to give back to our community. As I have told you, Josh and I are truly blessed, we have each other and some money put away, my job pays well and is going really well and his is also. Well, I really felt it was time to find a way to help others and this is a wonderful group.

We get together at the church on Sunday around 3 o’clock and begin preparing out Sunday meal for the homeless. We usually try to make a one pot meal, as it is easier to serve to the masses and covers all of the basic food groups. We sometimes make stew, chili, or soup. It is a great group activity and we are making some nice friend through this bonding experience.

Anyway, going out and helping feed the people who are homeless gives you an opportunity to really get to know them as people. I think I am gaining a much better perspective on the homeless because of this initiative. I never really understood why people were homeless, now I am gaining a better understanding. Many of the people we deal with are transient, but there are some who stay in our town. There is one man in particular that I have grown quite attached to over the past few weeks. His name is Joe and he is an older black man. He fought in Vietnam, and after he returned home from the war he said it was awful. He has excruciating pain that he visits the VA hospital for Morphine every week, even as he lives homeless on the streets. The man has shown me his gut as he has been totally ripped apart from his war injuries, it is really quite gruesome. He has problems with his leg and walks with a limp. He has a street companion, her name is Sara, she is a white girl about 25, overweight and she has been on the streets since she was about 15 or so she says. The one thing about homeless people is you can’t always be sure what they tell you is accurate or true, so you just must function on your basic instincts. Sara and Joe travel around together and take care of each other. Josh and I have really grown attached to these two and decided to give them a few hundred dollars to try to help them get back on their feet. Well, our next visit downtown revealed something that just astonished me. Joe and Sara had rented a hotel room with the money we gave them, and Sara had bought herself a new purse. That is right…I said a new purse? I just could not get over how these people could just blow the money we gave them, and then I realized that they were really on the street, because they had no idea how to manage money or their lives. It made me think about ways we could really help the homeless.

I think that it would be much better to implement a system of education for these people to help them get on their feet themselves. Much more effective than just throwing money at them would be to teach them the steps they could take to get out of this situation on their own. I think in the future, I would like to try and put together a program like this for the homeless. I am not upset about the money that I gave this people, as for me it was just another lesson learned.