Morning Thought 4 Thursday January 12th 2012
Good morning. I returned from Romania just before
Christmas. As well as distributing Christmas shoeboxes, I witnessed some very challenging
things, possibly none more concerning than distributing hot tea and sandwiches
to the homeless sheltering outside by pipes that provide the city’s hot water
and heating.
We had already met one homeless family of seven,
grandparents, parents and children, whose only possessions are what they
carry, their only food is what people give them or what they gather from the
bins. They have no skills, and when through illness they lost their jobs, they
couldn’t pay the rent and were evicted. But they are not the only family like
that in Oradea, there are many many more.
The youth club helped the social worker to prepare the
sandwiches, then armed with flasks of hot tea we went
to find the homeless. As we stopped the van by the hot pipes, heads emerged from
between those pipes. There must have been a group of over 10 people sheltering
there. We gave them sandwiches and hot drinks then went on to the next group
till we ran out of provisions, but that was long before we found all the city’s homeless.
It made me think of what Jesus said “I was hungry and you
gave me something to eat, I needed clothes and you clothed me”. But when the
listeners asked when it was that they had helped him he said “Whatever you did
for one of these you did for me”. What
will he say to us? To me? To you?