Everyone's Opinion Newsletter

Our church hosted a Thanksgiving dinner this year to serve to anyone in our church and the surrounding community. We asked the people in church to sign up so we knew how many people to expect. Please note that we started this project 3 weeks before Thanksgiving so many folks already had plans. But we went ahead with the Thanksgiving Dinner anyway.

The day of the dinner there were 5 or 6 of us who had signed up. We cooked 2 donated turkeys and prepared a full turkey dinner just so we would be prepared if more people showed up. By the time dinner was served we had 3 more members of our church join us for dinner. We sang "Praise God from Whom All Blessings flow" and sat down to eat.

And then the miracle occurred. As we sat down to eat, a black man came though the church door "to get warm" He had hopped a freight to New York when in actually he would have ended up in the south somewhere.

And here's where the miracle begins. He was caught in Altoona and ordered off of the train. So he walked around and ended up at the Altoona Hospital. They gave him directions to the men's mission.

When this man got to the men's shelter he was turned away and told that he could come back at 5:00pm.when the shelter opens. So, since this was 1:00, he had to find someplace open in order to get out of the bitter cold weather. He said that he just kept walking around until he finally found an open door.

We invited him to our table; got him food and drink and enjoyed conversation with each other. We finally found out how our drifter, Joe, came to our church. He had lost his job in Cleveland and was going to his nephew's house in New York. The only problem was that Joe had to find a way to get to his nephew's house. So, he hopped a southbound train and got thrown off in Altoona. If he would have remained on that train he would not have even been close to New York!

Around 2:00 we finished cleaning up from the dinner and we still had to help Joe out. He wasn't permitted to be in the mission until 5:00 pm so our preacher and her husband took Joe to a church that they knew he would be safe and warm until he could get into the shelter.

The next day, our pastor and her husband took Joe to the bus station, and the church provided him with a ticket to New York!

Joe was very grateful and felt , as we did, that this was "all by design."

Joe just wanted to be warm and we just wanted to open our doors to help anyone we could.

Joe is alive and safe and we were infused with the joy of God's providence.

The only question I have left from that day is: why are shelters not open all day long on a holiday? We were told that the men must leave the shelter by 8:00am so they can look for a job! Joe was passing though - I don't think he would be able to look for a job on Thanksgiving Day nor did he plan on staying in Altoona.

Are there no exceptions to the "out at 8:00am" and not back in until 5:00pm? How many people are wandering our streets everyday because of these rules?

We really need to find a better way of taking care of the men and women who need use of our shelters. Does anyone out there have any ideas?

Carol,

Altoona, PA