Safe For Now

Listening to the storm, hearing the winds whip through the trees, the sound of an occasional limb cracking and falling on the roof or deck, I couldn't help but reflect how much our community owes the churches providing cold night shelter and meals.

Not every member of the community acknowledges this debt, and some are quite vocal in their opposition to even the slightest service to those they feel are inferior to themselves. But I can't believe that, as the cold sets in, and the winds rage past, anyone truly thinks this is a lifestyle freely chosen and followed.

Compassion is easy to feel; hard to act upon. It takes real work to stay up night after night with a room full of often cranky and frightened men and women. Preparing meals for many takes physical effort and stamina. The emotional toll mounts with every time you look in a face and see the mother's son, the lost brother, the missing friend that person once was. It becomes even more difficult when, as happens more and more often lately, you see a small child and a shaking mom, looking for help in a world that has turned very unsafe.

What humbles me is that this physical strength and emotional stability is generally provided by women and men in their 70s and 80s. Our younger people, including me, beg off. We have jobs to attend to in the morning; we have family obligations that often keep us up late at night; we are needed somewhere, anywhere, but where the hardest work is done. And we don't think about who is filling the gaps. It might be a bit hard to live with ourselves if we did.

And yet, the number of churches offering help to our most fragile neighbors continues to grow. Three FWB downtown churches: First Presbyterian, Seventh Day Adventist, and St. Simon's on the Sound, have been at this the longest - going on nine years now. I do hear mention from time to time that they were promised they would only be needed for a year or two, and that it is only the hope that this will come to an end that keeps them going. I don't know who made this promise, or how it was expected to be kept, and I doubt anyone working in these churches sees an end in sight any time soon (I never give up, though!).

And still, leaders like Yvonne Franklin, Mary Hauge, Gloria Battle, Chris Levebvre, Lydia Barton and many others from these churches keep not only opening up each winter, but volunteering at newer churches, and lending their aid and expertise to churches thinking about starting new programs in new locations. And they seem to always radiate good humor and joy.

Each of the other churches that have joined have shown courage, in tackling not just the community at large, but their congregations in specific, not all members of whom are happy about seeing their churches used even as the most temporary of homeless shelters. And still they keep coming: Gregg Chapel AME not only offers cold night service, but meals every Tuesday throughout the year, and Saturdays in the summer, First Baptist, Mary Esther United Methodist, and now First Christian have all looked at the pain experienced by too many in their midst, and said, "if not me, who?" and joined the effort.

Ann Sprague, Cynthia Hall and the Busavages have been inspirational in motivating churches and groups in Crestview, where it gets colder more often, and participating churches see more service than those on the coast. They, and others, have ensured that the homeless in the north end of the county have someplace to get warm and find nourishment, body and soul, every day the temperature turns cold.

The cold night program is so well established now that it seems a permanent solution to the issue of people who have no place to go when the weather turns on us, but it isn't. Not everyone can find space, and heavy rains at 42 degrees are more unpleasant to live through than a dry night where the temperature falls to 40, but we have nothing to offer on those occasions. And unless we can recruit a whole new bunch of strong, caring and stalwart volunteers in their later years, we will face an even greater crisis in the next few years.

So as the rain falls, and the cold winds foreshadow the winter ahead, we say a prayer of thanks that some of our homeless found a safe harbor for the night, and another prayer that all will find a haven on their way to a permanent home, wherever that may be.

Thanks to everyone who does so much. You provide a truly essential service for a government that chooses to turn its back on its citizens in desperate need, and a community whose support is often expressed more in its absence than its expression. You mean much to many, and more than that to me. You are my heroes.