Washington trip; day 2

               This afternoon we visited an organization called SOME which stands for So Others Might Eat, a visit which made a huge impact on us all. SOME “exists to help the poor and homeless of our nations capital. We meet the immediate daily needs of the people we serve with food, clothing, and health care. We help break the cycle of homelessness by offering services, such as affordable housing, job training, addiction treatment and counseling, to the poor, the elderly and individuals with mental illness.”

     SOME began as a soup kitchen in 1970 and still feeds 1000 people a day seven days a week. Each day, SOME is restoring hope and dignity one person at a time. There are a number of centres offering housing for families, food and clothing, medical and dental care, addictions treatment, mental health care  and advocacy and social justice programmes.

      It was the President of SOME, Father John Adams who impressed us so much and was for me the embodiment of the mission and message of the organization. Last year 248,058 meals were provided for people of all ages, 13,767 showers and free clothing was provided, 10, 524 medical and dental care visits took place and 51,336 hours of intensive job training to homeless and low income men and women.  John has been with SOME for 29 years. His Christian character, humility, love and compassion were so apparent. His faith strong and personal, his commitment to prayer obvious. When asked by one of our group what kept him going he said, simply but profoundly that it is about “ seeing Christ in the people that we’re serving”. 

      The budget for SOME annually is sixteen million dollars, raised mainly through individual generous donors and the gifts of churches. It just touched me so deeply and challenged me about the value of each human life and the Biblical imperative to care for the poor and to see Jesus in them.

 

    Talking about the value of each individual life, we visited the Vietnam memorial in Washington, a long black marble wall near the Lincoln memorial in the centre of the city. On it the names of every single person from the US forces who lost their lives in the conflict, over 58,000 names, their average age just 19. Talking to one of the veterans who volunteer to be there at the wall each day revealed the utter horror of the war and its continuing devastation in the lives of many. Many people take a thin sheet of paper and a crayon from the veterans and do a tracing, a rubbing of the name of a loved one from the carved letters on the wall, a keepsake to take away. Others leave little messages or flowers at the foot of the wall in memory of a family member or friend who fell in the conflict. We must surely continue to hate war and its consequences. To be an agent of reconciliation is surely the call of Christ on our lives.

 

Gordon  McDade