to the homeless and marginalized
in downtown Portland, Maine
offering support through
Presence, Prayer and Advocacy
October 08, 2014
October Update
The leaves are changing, there’s a chill in the air, the angle of the light is lower and the squirrels move with greater urgency as the season shifts. On the street, there is a slight but pervasive sense of foreboding as the needs morph from t-shirts and sneakers to boots, winter coats and sleeping bags, straining our modest resources even further.
As the new kid on the block, I have a steep learning curve – particularly in the face of a mountain of need with a molehill of resources.
But in spite of all that, there are small miracles every day – the pair of shoes that perfectly fit a woman sitting with swollen, blistered feet and crutches up against a chain link fence along Congress Street, or the man in the wheelchair, his body worn out from a lifetime of working, praying his disability claim goes through this time , but in the same breath telling me that if he could do one thing in his life right now, it would be to take away the Parkinson’s tremors from a woman he knows at church and carry them in his own body.
It’s truly a blessing to be able to do this work.
-Pastor Jeff