WHAT IF ...

I begin this latest blogging post after hearing the news of a young woman in her prime as a mother of six , a friend and family member to many people, gunned down as she was leaving a social event two nights ago in Charlotte. She is the daughter of a close friend to one of our guests at Providence this year in our partnership with the Center of Hope.
We’ve written about Fran -- tall, a woman of substance, a leader within the twelve women we are hosting at Providence. Fran is full of sunshine, has a deep faith, is torn between difficult family issues and tries to befriend and help this small group of complex personalities. She has had a hard week, just recovering from a virus and not able to participate in many of PPCCOH activities and events. She had just started to feel better when she heard the news of a young woman’s death yesterday morning. Later in the morning, she would get a telephone call from her son explaining that the young woman was indeed LaQuinta Davis, the daughter of a dear friend, so close that she was considered Fran’s granddaughter and Fran was called grandmother by her and her children.
Our small group of women rallied around Fran, as did last evening’s chaperones and others associated with our project. Walt met with Fran, and we joined him in prayer for the young woman so needed, so loved, and who left her family way too soon.

Several Sundays ago, I teamed with our stewardship committee members to help kickoff our annual Stewardship campaign at Providence with the WHAT IF resource marketing campaign to our congregants. We wanted to dream what if we had more resources, and in the well-scripted campaign kickoff, we actually heard Tandy pronounce WHAT IF we had the resources to have a 100-bed facility for the sheltering project in addition to our sheltering for two weeks. (Last year we went from one week successfully to two weeks!).

Well, WHAT IF we did more this year? WHAT IF instead of our taking these twelve women back on Monday morning to the Center of HOPE, that we didn’t just wave goodbye and go home and have a good cry, and bemoan with each other how sad and how hard it was to say goodbye, and then see each other on Sunday morning and again bemoan how hard it was to be involved with these women for two weeks at such a concentrated amount of time, effort, and expense and how we wish we could do more.

Well here it is, just about time for us to wish them Godspeed and send them on their way. Recently, I read an article in the Charlotte Observer about one Charlotte author who heard a message that many others heard about a woman’s loss of her life at the hands of another and leaving behind a young son. Jenn Snyder is executive director to Hood Hargett Breakfast Club, a Charlotte business networking association. How is it that hundreds maybe even thousands of individuals saw the CNN show and the focus on a press conference where Ohio police officers reported that a mother was missing and it was alleged that her child’s father may have committed the crime. Their son Blake was left in the home, just two years old, for TWO DAYS. How is it that Snyder heard the show and felt immediately she could make a difference in this young boy’s life. There in the privacy of her own home, she knew she was being called, and she knew she had an opportunity to make a difference in someone’s life.

Here is what I am leading up to: WHAT IF you knew that you could do something more for these women that could have a meaningful impact on the success or failure of their lives in terms of living, working, surviving and becoming productive and useful citizens of this community? WHAT IF you did more than fix a bag lunch, drove a couple of hours a week, washed loads of towels, or made phone calls, or washed dishes -- don’t misunderstand my message here, those tasks are critical to our own sheltering project needs. You heard Tandy’s call, you heard God’s call to serve the “least of these.”

I am challenging you, I am challenging myself to do more. So What if...what if we push ourselves out of our nest, out of our comfort zone where we push ourselves to a real sacrificial level to make a difference in these women’s lives.

Personally, I want to be and do more than provide a great vacation, an interlude, two weeks of a spa-like setting with yoga, hugs, hot showers, and clean beds. Just like you, I want Fran, Faith, Dana, Jackie, Carol, Nancy, Sadia, Stephanie, Wanda, Gina, Chaney, Annie, and Helen to have a safe place to call home, the freedom to attend worship where they want to, the freedom to see family when they want to, the freedom to have privacy when they want to, and that can only happen if they are gainfully employed, and have travel resources, and clothing suitable for work, and constant inspiration and encouragement to guide them in their life decisions. Really, I know we all want there not to be anymore need to for us to shelter these women in the future and the only way that can happen is that we face up to the realities that there are many more out there who need help. It is intimidating to realize that there is a constant line of needs. When the needs are so great it is easy to fall back into the crutch of “I’m just one person, what can just one person do?”.1

Are you ready to change the way you approach serving others as God would have us do? Are you ready to change your thought process that we do matter and can make other people’s lives better so that they can feel as though they matter as well. “We have to change our mentality and incorporate this idea that we all matter into our own lifestyle. See with your eyes but more importantly see with your heart....Know that we all matter; that’s the key.”

Will you join with me and others to find a way to help our church, help our community work more towards providing opportunities, helping individuals to find jobs, help them to become employed, help to educate our community and our church that we need to take a real close, deep look at ourselves and push ourselves to do more. We have homes, we have jobs, we have pensions, we have beach houses, we have mountain places, we have education, we have friends, we have cars, we have so much, and that is as it should be -- we worked hard, we played by the rules, we did our homework, and we have more. Now it is time to make that “more” work by recognizing that we have more so we can give more, more time, more service, more talent, more treasure. It doesn’t have to hurt to give more to give at all. So WHAT IF, you don’t go to the mountains next weekend, WHAT IF you got on the phone and called your buddies who own businesses, or who supervise, and asked, can you help us find jobs.

WHAT IF you called ten people? WHAT IF you visited ten business managers and asked them for help. WHAT IF you bought 12 bus passes? WHAT IF you found 12 rooms that could be rented? WHAT IF you helped twelve women with their working wardrobe? WHAT IF you gave three women $100 a month to go towards household operating funds. WHAT if you provided furniture for a new home, WHAT IF you pushed yourself. You matter. Let’s make them matter.

1. Charlotte Observer Arts & Entertainment
Don’t Change the Channel, Jenn Snyder, Autho