Homelessness (By Neely McQueen)
By Until Then | May 21, 2011
Last night after Josh and I got the kids all tucked in and asleep, we decided to watch The SOLOIST.
I saw the movie recommended on someone’s facebook status as the American version of Slumdog. So we decided to watch it! And it was really good…a little slow at the beginning but in the end a really great story.
Even before this movie I had been thinking a lot about the homeless. The ones in my area and the ones in Ethiopia. On one of our days in Ethiopia we were overwhelmed by amount of children living on the streets. My husband started talking with a group of them while feeding them some sandwiches and cookies. Most of the group lived at the bus park because their parents had died or abandoned them to the streets – and due to the overwhelming number of orphan children…these kids end up on the streets by themselves. One of the kids was 3…the same age as Betty…and instead of finding hope and future through adoption he will find a life filled with sorrow, despair, sickness and death on the streets.
Boys, girls, women and men should not be living life this…there or here!
What can I do?
At one point in the movie…Jamie Foxx’s character (which is based on a actual homeless person) looked around and called all the homeless people on the streets of Skid Row in LA…Children of God. And what struck me in the truth of that statement…
Is that it doesn’t or shouldn’t matter how they got on the streets…they are Children of God.
If drug abuse led them there…Children of God
If mental llness led them there…Children of God
If disease led them there…Children of God
They could be your mother, brother, father, sister…
They could be your daughter…I know that now.
I often wonder what I can do as a mom with 3 kids… I can…
1. Make eye contact- acknowledge them
2. Carry a few gift cards to McDonalds or Starbucks…especially if I don’t feel comfortable giving cash.
3. Depending on the situation – invite them to eat with our family.
What else? I would love some simple (or even not so simple) ideas of what one mom can do?
By Neely McQueen