Paul, the biblical apostle wrote a phrase that always resonated with me as he was giving instructions to a young church in the Epistles, “… And remember the poor…”
This has stayed with me and is a major tenant and attraction of my faith. It seemed to me when I read it that it resonated with Jesus main message when he said “the poor you have with you always…”.
I’ve been rich and poorer than dirt poor on and off throughout my life. I know both sides. i had experienced many times in my youth that the only food we had was when I went to school. I remember distinctly detecting the coming famines for the family when we would begin to have potato soup every night and each day there would be less potato and more soup until the potato soup had no potatoes. That would begin the famine. I could go on but you get the picture.
But I’m also reminded that even in those times, there were always those who had less. Our trailer leaked but had a roof, the bills were late, power sometimes off, no AC in the summer, but I could look out of the windows and see others without doors, without windows, without lights in the evenings and many times no job and getting evicted. There were always the poor and we were rich. Our family stayed together and suffered together, but looking out the windows some were alone.
I was reminded this weekend. There is a family that I try to stay available to that really live close to the circumstance if my childhood. They’re ability to produce is not the same. The mother works but has limited skills, the best she can do is about $13 an hour. It’s a family of a mother and three girls. They’re trying, but it will be a while if they can get up. They’ll have to work together. They are poor. I drive by their mobile home each day going to work and returning. I’ve given them a couple cheap cars to help keep them mobile so they can work. I know they don’t have replacement money for a vehicle. They try to manage themselves and their life. They don’t ask for much, but I received a call this weekend.
FIRE. That’s all that was desperately screamed on the phone. “John the water heater is burning.” I rallied my son and grabbed a fire extinguisher. We jumped in the truck and flew down to their mobile home hoping not to see flames pouring out of the roof!
Luckily, when I arrived the house was intact and they had somehow put it out before too much damage. As it smoldered I remembered.
They would be homeless without that decrepit old mobile home. It’s a mess, it needs so much. Doors are rotting from a leaky roof. Fixtures barely allow the water to run from the calcium buildup. There are soft parts in the floor as you walk through the house. But this is all they have and will have, probably unless something major changes.
We knew they didn’t have any money for another water heater. They didn’t ask for help. We all knew it was the grace of God the mobile home didn’t burn down. I haven’t had a lot of money lately, but they definitely needed help. My son and I decided they would have a water heater and gathered up the extra and worked until midnight to install it. The floor was gone, electric lines burnt. We rebuilt the floor, ran a new wire and installed a new water heater. Sometimes there’s just things we need to do .
This situation took me back to my childhood. The conditions were very similar, and it troubled me over the weekend. It was just a reminder that there’s always someone going through something more difficult than i face. As bad as I think it is sometimes, there’s always somebody that really needs help.
Maybe a little preachy today, but I’m preaching to myself. I need to remember the poor. I feel bad that their house is in such condition that I didn’t do anything before that point that they had a fire in their water heater. It really brought it home to me when she told me she kept hitting the reset for the last year to make the water heater work. I haven’t been watching close enough. I haven’t been remembering the poor.
