Last Saturday, I went with a group of 15 other people from my church to do a service and mission project for Hope Ministries. Hope Ministries is an organization in Des Moines that serves homeless men, women, and children through a variety of programs. They offer shelter and recovery programs that are all Christ based. They also run the Hope Bargain Center which takes donations similar to a Goodwill and either sells, recycles, or gives away items to those in need. Our group worked for two hours at the Bargain Center on Saturday, then we ate lunch with the community at Hope Cafe, and then we took supplies to homeless tent camps along the river. It was an eye opening and heart breaking experience. People who live in the tent camps usually choose to do so because they are struggling with alcohol or drug addiction. They have shelter available to them, but they don't want to have to follow rules or give up their addiction. You can see the sadness and hopelessness on their faces and you want so badly to shake them and tell them that there's a better way. Instead we brought new socks and underwear, beef stew, sandwiches, bottled water, and cookies we baked and we sat down and talked with them for a little while. They are used to having people come visit them on Saturdays so they were open to us being there and they were pretty friendly. A few of them wouldn't come out of their tents, but they allowed us to leave supplies for them and pray over their tent and camp. It was a great experience and it really made me want to do more to support Hope Ministries and all that God is doing through this wonderful organization! More than that though it made me so thankful that I understand that all things are possible through Christ and nothing is too hard to overcome through Him. It breaks my heart to see people struggling through life when they don't have to. According to the book of Ephesians, "even before God made the world He loved us and chose us to be Holy in Christ and without fault in His eyes." God didn't create anyone to be miserable and broken, he's given us a way to be complete and perfect in his eyes and all we have to do is accept the free gift of salvation that Jesus offers us. If we can humble ourselves before the Lord and confess that we mess up and we need help, the Holy Spirit is available to us and Jesus is there for us. I saw my father struggle through alcohol addiction and I saw the shame and hurt that he felt and even thinking about it now makes my heart hurt. He wrote a letter before he passed away detailing the things that he was most proud of in his life. Events or accomplishments that to him showed he was worthy of having lived. I wish I could have told him that even if he'd never accomplished any of those things, God found him worthy and there was nothing he could do to earn God's love. It's a free gift. No matter how much we believe or don't believe in God, God believes in us. My dad and I didn't have many heart to heart conversations, but I wish I would have told him about God's love for him because maybe it would have made a difference. That experience and that memory is one of the things that really makes me want to help people and really makes me want to share the message of Christ. I don't want to see people hurting and I don't want them to miss out on the greatest relationship of all time... a relationship with the creator of the universe who says he chose you before he even created the world. Wow, that's powerful.
