Matters of the Heart

Back to School–For Children Only?

Back to School–For Children Only—Really? In a motel ministry many of your services are geared toward children, none more so that in August—Back to School time. We spend the entire month of August making the rounds of the motels we serve, distributing backpacks to make sure the children get to start that all important first day of school with everything they need, looking and feeling “Just like everyone else”. It’s important to them and doubly so to us.

We hand out backpacks before school starts. Don’t wait until September. It will be too late to prevent an embarrassing first day for the children. A day that can shape their attitudes toward school for the entire year or even the rest of their lives if they’re shamed for not having a new backpack and all the things on the teacher’s wish list.

The children are your main focus for this activity, but sometimes they are not the only focus. Adults need backpacks too. If you have enough and if you can do it quietly, don’t cut the adults out. Many of the adults ride bicycles, the bus or even walk to work. They have to carry everything they need for the day with them. They can’t leave things in a car they don’t have and they certainly can’t make a quick trip home if they need something.

Happy Father’s Day, Mom

Today is Father’s Day. We’ve observed many great fathers, doing the best they can for their children and wives, in very, very difficult situations. We see dads who go without new shoes and even without dinner, so their children don’t have to. There is no difference between the love they have for their children and the love of men who have better finances.

However, the irony of the day was the number of moms we ran into today, who are raising their families on their own. For whatever reason, there is no dad in sight. We were impressed by the good job they’re doing. The undisputable truth lies in their children, who evidence their love by holding their mom’s hands, hugging them and making sure to ask for something to eat for their mammas, whenever we bring snacks. They do not forget.

Many of the boys take on a protector’s role of their mother when they are very young. It’s a lesson you wish no child had to learn, but in the end is the responsibility, maturity and kindness they learn really a bad thing?

Although an intact family with two parents is almost always going to be best for a child, these children did not walk around with long faces because they didn’t have a dad on Father’s Day. It barely registered on their little radars. The sunshine of their lives, their moms, were there and that was all they needed today.

So, in honor of Father’s Day, to all the moms who perform both the job of mom and dad, we say with love and admiration, Happy Father’s Day, Mom.

Patience is a Two Way Virtue

Patience is a two way virtue. You teach it and if you’re lucky, you learn it too. We experienced it in action last week. We sat down with the children to do a Father’s Day craft, cleverly orchestrated by the craft lady, “Miss Dawn”. They decorated funny little sports cars and colored a beautiful Father’s Day card worthy of Hallmark. I’ve never heard a group of children so silent. Their total concentration on getting what they were doing absolutely right for their dads was moving. Bent heads, tongues stuck out between teeth and complete attention to coloring within the lines were the order of the day.

One little boy had a “Magic Marker Malfunction”. He was almost done with his dad’s card. He was the last child left and we were just about ready to wrap up the session and go home, when the blue magic marker he was using bled all over his masterpiece. He’s a quiet child so he didn’t make a fuss, but we saw what had happened and asked him if he wanted to start over again. He said “yes”, so we handed him a clean card and settled in because he is the most meticulous of all the children. We knew we were in for a wait.

Sometimes, Rules have to be Broken

Sometimes, rules have to be broken. That probably sounds like a heretical statement when so much of this website and blog content concentrate on helping you “stay within the navigational beacons”. However, there will be times when you need to circumvent the rules if a client in need is going to be served in the best and most loving way.

We received a call from a client we’ve helped many times. We’ll call her “Sandra” (name changed). The needs were always legitimate because she’s a young single mother of two sweet little girls, and she has cancer. She has no family at all here. They are all in another state and are very poor themselves. It appeared however that we had become too convenient for Sandra, so the brakes had to be applied.

The last time Sandra was in need we paid her rent for two weeks, made sure her family had enough to eat and paid her cell phone bill. We told her to use those two weeks and the paid cell phone to concentrate on building up a list of resources other than Project Dignity to fall back on and that the next time a need arose she needed to call someone else. We wouldn’t be able to help her. We’re very small. If we pour out all our resources on a few families, a lot of others don’t get the help we should be providing.

Sandra placed an urgent call to us this morning. She was going to be locked out of her room at 11 because she was two days short on the rent. We hear this over and over again and yet somehow our clients manage to hold on even when we can’t help them. I decided to see what Sandra could come up with. I knew that she at least had a car they could sleep in if it came to that.

I’d had a tiring day and decided to make Sandra my last call before I got some rest. I called Sandra on her cell phone and she answered—from the front of the motel where she stood locked out with her two little girls. The manager had actually done it. She had tried all day to get help. Had walked for miles to places that might be able to help and had struck out. And, she no longer had a car because the timing belt had broken. I wished her well and terminated the conversation. Then, I sat there, and sat.

Know When to Say When

Know when to say when. It’s sad to think about, but there may come a time when you need to stop serving at a particular motel for a while, or worse yet, leave it altogether. This should only happen in the most extreme conditions, but it can happen. The most obvious one is if you find yourself and your volunteers in danger beyond your control. If this happens, you leave and live to serve another day, at another motel.

Another untenable situation can occur when you’ve been serving at a particular motel for a while and the residents begin to take your services for granted. They expect you to pay their rent, give them gift cards, bring them food, etc. and become testy and abusive if you don’t “grant all their wishes”.

This can occur if you’re too quick to solve problems or jump right in to fill needs without letting your clients have the dignity of thinking through their problems themselves. Why should your clients find other resources if you’re always popping up, taking care of everything? You’ve not only made them very comfortable where they are, you may also have taken away their incentive to be anywhere else. You have crippled them.

Be Flexible–Be Prepared

Being flexible and prepared is probably the best advice you’ll ever give yourself when you serve the homeless. It applies to all areas of your ministry, but none more so than the first service you will probably ever offer—food distribution.

You do it because you have a heart and can’t stand the thought of people going hungry. Nothing is more heart breaking than having to stop the good effort you started, so don’t take anything for granted. Don’t assume that solid food sources will remain consistent and solid. The homeless clients you serve got that way because of economic changes. Those changes can affect you too.

When is it Really an Emergency?

When is it Really an Emergency?

Some days you get no phone calls. Some days they pile up quicker than you can handle them. That’s when you have to “triage”—decide which call gets handled now and which ones can wait for a bit. Face it, they are all emergencies. No one ever calls just to say hello. Someone’s on the verge of eviction because they can’t pay the rent, someone’s car just broke down, someone needs food, someone needs to get to the doctor. The key word is need. Everyone needs something and they pretty much need it right now.

Depending on the size of your staff and/or volunteer base a day with a lot of phone calls can either go smoothly or cause you to spin in circles if you’re not careful. If it’s just you handling the emergencies you need to take a deep breath, make your best decision and get on to the next one.

Last week there was a day with multiple phone calls and emails, all with serious requests, involving rent, food, transportation and a sick child. Guess which one got handled first? Right, the one involving the sick child. We received an urgent call from one of the motel residents asking for help for another family whose baby was very sick. (Motels are mini microcosms, communities unto themselves. The residents take care of each other).

One resident helped get the baby and mother to the emergency room. Another helped get them home at 2 am when the buses were no longer running. Unfortunately, they ran up against a problem they couldn’t solve. They all had heart. What they didn’t have was money. The emergency room saw the baby and diagnosed her with a bad case of the flu. Then she was released to go home, with a 103 degree temperature and a prescription. When the mother went to the 24 hour pharmacy to fill the prescription, she found out there was a foul-up with her Medi-Cal coverage. The prescription cost $150 and she didn’t have the money. Neither did anyone else. She had to take the baby home without the prescription.