Letter to the Editor: What is it like for the homeless during an extended storm?

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Please pray for our homeless neighbors, who have been outside during the recent nor’easter, and who are outside in all weather.

We were able to help a few homeless people last week with warm, dry clothes, and we gave out a few meals, but most of our regulars we did not see. We hear they are scattered about, trying to survive as best they can somewhere out there. The long, windy, chilly and rainy storm has been devastating to our homeless neighbors.

To help you understand, imagine for a minute that it was rainy and windy in your living room or bedroom, and raining all over your rugs and mattresses right now, and it would last for 48 hours straight, and you were wet and cold all over your body. Your ears, nose, feet and hands numb with chill. The clothes you are wearing now and the shoes and socks you are wearing are soaking wet with no relief in sight. And you didn’t have anything dry to put on. The wind and chilly air keep blowing in hour by hour over a few days. And overnight, when you are trying to sleep in wet clothes, it gets even more windy, like 40-50 mile an hour winds. And you are also hungry, lonely, afraid and tired.

This gives you a glimpse of what it is like for them.

I am disappointed in myself for being comfortable, with my feelings of anxiety about the homeless being so uncomfortable out there. I am one of the people in our community who is supposed to be helping. But I just feel tired and powerless when weather like that blows in and hangs out for a few days. Even my own feet are wet and cramping with a chill just walking from my car to the office. I feel like I have no choice but to be OK with feeling uncomfortable about their situations because I really can’t solve these problems. We actually need miracles to happen out here. Does that make any sense?

Please pray for them and ask God to comfort them because us humans can’t seem to find a solution that will work.

“How we walk with the broken speaks louder than how we sit with the great.” — Bill Bennot.

Jim Martin

Director, The Shepherd’s Office

Georgetown

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