In one of my Bible studies at El Jordan, we were studying 1 Peter... where we’re reminded that the “end” is getting close... and in order to “pray well”, we need to be sober and clear headed...  We realized that on the tip of our tongues, our priorities seemed very clear...  They sounded really good... but when we actually started thinking about our everyday living, decisions and habits... our priorities weren’t nearly so clear cut... 

When we started our planning for “Christmas on the Streets” we came back to the same lesson...  We rhymed off our priorities as to WHO we were reaching out to...

1.      Groups of drug addicts and people on the streets

2.      Students from El Jordan and their families

3.      People in extreme  poverty... 

HOW?  Local churches and organizations reaching out at Christmas (a sad and lonely time for many) with a great meal and a message of love and hope... with the hopes of sowing deeper reaching connections between Christians and the lost and needy around them...

Yet, in evaluating the last years, we found that although our priorities were well defined... in practice we were weak in the area where we should have been the strongest – in reaching out to the streets...  We found local churches excited about reaching out to the poor around them... but when it came to going to the streets, with a couple exceptions, it would be a group of El Jordan volunteers, sapped of basically all energy, going from place to place...  The addict and street populations of our city are growing, yet we hadn’t grown with it...

This year, we decided we wouldn’t increase our overall numbers of plates/gifts... (keeping it at around 4,500) but we would find MORE places on the streets to reach out to...  This meant that we had to re-evaluate where the plates to the “poor” were going... giving priority to those who were reaching out to the most forgotten... to the extreme poor... If any new churches wanted to get involved, we’d give them the option of teaming up as the support group for an El Jordan volunteer to take “Christmas” to the streets.

Abraham, Marco and I gave extra time to visiting places where “Christmas on the Streets” had been given out in past years... and Marco took charge in coordinating the “streets” side of Christmas...  and it was amazing to see how different doors were opened  (although there aren’t any doors under the bridges and in wooded areas of the city where the addicts live!!!!) and arrangements were made for Christmas... 

Years ago, I had been warned away from a wooded area...  The person I had gone looking for begged me to please never come back... “Melena”, the feared man in charge, didn’t like people just coming in... too many bad things could happen to me...  so I never went back... but I’ve often thought about those addicts, hidden away in those bushes... unseen by society... in their own dark world...  Now, this Christmas Marco was able to go there with a group of young people from our church and from Canada...

In the week before Christmas there are always police round ups... trying to “clean up” the shadows of the city so the lights can shine brighter... getting rid of the “riff raff” so there can be “peace on earth and good will to men”...  Hah.  This affected several of our new places for Christmas... 

Climbing under a bridge, Marco was met with silence and evidence that the occupants had been burned out, when he went to confirm that we’d be back for Christmas... The group of twenty had disbanded, no forwarding address given... Richard, one of our new friends from there, showed up at El Jordan a couple days before Christmas, his arm in a cast... with an x-ray showing a clear fracture in his fore arm...  the price he paid for being “at home” that day the police arrived with their gases and clubs (thus the broken arm)... He lost his backpack that day that held all of his earthly possessions...  He wanted us to know where we could find them for Christmas...

That’s the treatment so many street people get at this time of year... which makes “Christmas on the Streets” even more timely...  It’s an opportunity to show that there is no one without worth... that God’s love can reach even to the darkest, loneliest corner...  its an opportunity for us who have been blessed in so many ways, to share that with others...

Every year I am amazed at how everything comes together... people who give... others who work... coordinate... make the contacts...  I love it!!!  To me it’s so exciting... I can’t imagine being any where else for Christmas... Thankfully, my pregnancy hasn’t given me any problems at all...  Next year might be a different story with a little one needing my attention too...  But... we’ll come to that bridge when we get to it!!!

Can you imagine... how many hands come together to make this happen?  We made up about 4,800 little gift bags... cooked 900 pounds of rice... 500 chickens... 800 kilos of pork...  1100 pounds of potatoes... 30-some stalks of frying bananas...  My uncle Norman, Nancy and their (our) friends Sandy and Susie came to be with us this year... and cooked about 125 round roasts...  Both chicken and pork prices almost doubled on us this year... but there were people who gave who made it possible to buy them...  To peel potatoes, prepare the pork, cook the rice, bake the meat, and prepare everything else we had a group all the way from Caronport, Saskatchewan to help us... along side of people from churches, from the streets, kid’s homes, neighbors, volunteers and students... Wow...  ...and Heidi already wrote about our hero from this year... an amazing little red wagon that saved the day (and night!)...

El Jordan is bustling with activity all night long on the 23rd... which continues on through the 24th... in the morning finishing up the last preparations... and at noon, starting the serving and handing out the food and gifts (to the churches and groups that then take it to their destinations).

In the end, we served somewhere around 4,900+ plates of food... Over 1500 of that went out in bulk (the churches bring their own pots for us to fill) so that they can make extra rice etc to make the food stretch to more people...   It’s all so hard to believe, even when you see it happening in front of your eyes... BUT... you know what gets to me even more the great big numbers?  It is the individual people that “Christmas on the Streets” touches...  Can I tell you about a few?

*   *   *

When Marco went to the new “area” where Richard (the one with the broken arm) and his friends were living, there was a middle aged alcoholic who quietly received his plate of food and gift, walked across the street and knelt down...  Marco saw him kneeling, bowed over... and asked someone, “Is he sick?” “No, he is praying...”

The man got up... and before he started eating, he came back to thank the group for his plate of food...  No one had ever given him a whole plate of food before... scraps... leftovers... bits and pieces... but never a plate of food...

How often do we, who have much, take things for granted... and forget to be thankful... first of all to the One from whom everything comes... and to the people around us who God has used as instruments of His grace...

THANK YOU GOD... and to each and every one of you who worked, gave or prayed to make “Christmas on the Streets” possible... Thanks!

*   *   *

Victor Hugo, a pastor from a local church, participated for the first time in “Christmas on the Streets” along with his family and some young people from his church accompanying Eli, one of our volunteers, to reach out to a group of window washers, beggars and street kids at a main intersection of the city.

Tears filled his eyes as he described his experience...  he had a hard time controlling his emotion.  “Corina... I promise you, (sniff... sniff) that this year, we as a church are going to help you.  The churches in this city need to wake up... we need to do something!!!”   At first there seemed to be only a handful of people... when all of a sudden children of all ages started coming out of no where... The 60 plates were definitely NOT going to be enough...  They started grouping siblings in 2’s and 3’s... and giving them one plate of food to share between them...  Sometimes when we are sitting comfortable in the church, we forget about the many needy people (physically and spiritually needy) who are surrounding us...

*   *   *

After all the serving was done at El Jordan, I went with a group of people downtown close by the old bus terminal where prostitutes, glue sniffers and street kids hang out...  I had “ordered” 50 plates... but in the end there were 20 extra, left over from another area where the police had already shooed the street people away... When we arrived there were only a few people gathered... but word spreads fast, and soon a crowd formed... Guess how many people there were?  71...  Anibal, the father of the very first baby Corina, came by at the very end... and I think he was the only one that didn’t get any food...

From the streets, a few of us head to the outskirts of the city... to families that used to be on the streets...  The roads were bumpy... full of water... there were detours, I got turned around and couldn’t find my way...  I would’ve been tempted to say, “Sorry... we tried... but we couldn’t find your place...”  ...but then I’d think about the expectant faces waiting for us... and so I kept looking... (They are the ones who phoned me back in October to see if I was coming for Christmas.)

We turned up a little road... it looked familiar... As soon as we pulled up beside the little mud room, little bodies tumbled out... “Tia!!!!”  (Auntie!!)  The room was filled with two beds... a table along the wall with a little faded black and white TV on it...  No signs of “Christmas”... no decorations... no food... (not even a stove to cook anything on)... no bright lights... only a dirty 60 watt bulb hanging by a cable from the roof... The brightness came from their faces... thrilled at being remembered... at the thoughts of a good meal waiting for them... and the puffed corn, candies and little gift for each one...   What if we had given up and turned around?  At what time would those little faces have given up and resigned themselves that the “Tia” wasn’t coming?

*   *   *

Ten days before Christmas Samira, a newer volunteer from El Jordan, said to me...  “I don’t like Christmas.”  Christmases to her have always been sad... they bring back bad memories... her family sometimes with plenty... but empty... other times with absolutely nothing and her parents separated...  Now that they have come to know the Lord, things have changed completely... but Christmas still brings miserable reminders of the past...

This year Samira and her family all helped out at Christmas time... They were WONDERFUL... The mom helping cut up chickens... making food for the volunteers... the dad coming to help prepare the 800 kilos of pork... Samira and her sister taking leadership roles in the serving lines...  They did an incredible job...  Samira was in charge of judging the amounts that needed to be served... so that we wouldn’t run out... nor have a bunch left over... We have never the amounts work out so perfectly before...

At the end of hours of solid work... Samira said goodbye with shining eyes...  “Thank you... thank you!!! I’ve never had a better Christmas... It was wonderful...”

*   *   *

My rounds were done...  “Christmas on the Streets” was over... I dropped my companions off at their houses... It was 10 p.m. and I was ready for bed after being up and at it for two full days and a night...  BUT... I had three plates left over from the meals I had “ordered” for the families on the outskirts...

Maybe I’d find someone along the way to give them to... but no one really “stuck out”...  Lots of people were hanging around the round-abouts... but they always get showered with little presents and food at Christmas time by people who are trying to appease their consciences or do their “good deed” for the season...

I considered just going home to bed... It was justifiable... I had worked long enough...  But then the three plates of food would go bad...  They were for someone...  But who???

I sighed and turned away from home towards the market...  There’d be someone there...

...but the market was filled with people... the traffic was horrible... and I definitely didn’t feel like getting stuck in the middle of it...

I thought... “Well, I tried.”  As I turned towards home... I saw a lady walking alone...with a huge bundle on her back...  Maybe she was the one!

I got out of the truck and when she looked up at me I was taken aback... She had a very soft looking face... not like a suffering, hungry face at all... This lady didn’t need those meals!!!  She might even be offended by the offer!!!  ...but it was too late to retreat...  “Ummm...  I have some meals that I don’t want to go to waste... I wondered if you might want one... or know someone who might need them?”

The lady’s eyes softened even more... and looked at me almost incredulously... but not offended in the least...  I could barely believe her response... “God sent you...” ... “The Father knows when one of His children is hungry...”  She was on her way home that Christmas night... tired... hungry... a lady who looks after two children that hang out in the market...  If God sees and cares for a sparrow that falls to the ground... how much more does He care for us? 

Enough to send us a reminder of His love and care for us...

*   *   *

Thank you for listening to me ramble on and on about yet another “Christmas on the Streets” ...and trust that as we begin this New Year, you too will see reminders of God’s amazing love for you and yours...

God bless...

Lots of love from Marco, Corina... and the little one!!!

P.S.  Like usual... I didn’t take any pictures of Christmas...  I know that some were taken in the wooded places... If I can get a copy, I’ll forward them on to you later...