"Now I understand why you do what you do"

There is a precious family I have become very close to in the past months... we will call them the Smiths. It is a single mother with 10 children. The family used to live in our neighborhood, but through a series of events had to move over to the Southside. The teenage kids were in our Rock Island ministry and the little ones in our Underground. Their father is in prison...for life. We have grown close in the past months because the oldest son, who is 13, got into some legal trouble and consequently was sent to a boys home. We have been to see him a few times... he is actually doing very well.

I would say there is a bit of a "financial totem pole" when it comes to the families in our community. At the top of the totem pole is the "working poor", who are usually uneducated people who work hard at minimum wage jobs. Many of the families in this category have food on the table and a roof over their head, but not much else. I would put the Smith family at the very bottom of the totem pole. Mom is so caught up taking care of kids that she can't find time to work. She knows she has made some horrible mistakes and can't seem to get back on her feet. 9 of the kids and the mom live in an efficiency apartment. Each has a mattress on the floor. Each of the kids has maybe a shirt or two and a pair of pants. None of them have coats. I don't think their heat works. Through a series of very special God appointments, a life group from Lifechurch.tv decided to sponsor this enormous family for Christmas. We had a guideline for our Christmas adoption of $50 per child. Because of the state this family is in, I didn't give the group a dollar limit, I just told them the story.

The day the group dropped the stuff off I had a nice, long cry. Completely overwhelming. Each child had a garbage bag filled with a coat, clothes, gloves, hats, mittens, blankets, toys, etc. Because this family doesn't have a car, I knew I would get the chance to deliver it. So I loaded 10 full trash bags up in our 15 passenger van, grabbed two of our teenage boys from the neighborhood and headed over to the Southside at 10:00 one evening. The two boys I took are hispanic boys and have heat in their homes and food.. they are at the top of the totem pole. I warned them as we drove over what they were going to see, they made a few jokes about how they lived in the hood and understood, but I knew they didn't. Now picture this in your mind... as soon as we pulled up to the apartment all 9 kids (ages 2-13) came pouring out of the door, barefoot into the snow. They jumped up in to my arms and even in to the arms of the two teenage boys they didn't know. As we carried each trash bag in they kept hugging each one of us and saying thank you.

When we got back in to the van to leave there was dead silence. Not a sound from either boy... then I began to hear a few sniffles coming from the back seat. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw one of the boys with tears rolling down his face. He then asked, "do you see that kinda thing alot?" and I told him I do. After that there was complete silence for about 10 minutes, then the other boy said, "Now I understand why you do what you do."

Many of the older kids in the neighborhood think we are crazy, they don't understand why we wouldn't get jobs where we would make big bucks and get to live glamourous lifestyles. We try to explain, but I still think it is hard for them to really grasp. That moment in the van was one of the "lightbulb moments" I always speak about. All of the Rock Island kids may not ever get it, but those two do. They got the chance to realize that all the money in the world can't buy the feeling of being able to hug complete strangers and share the love of Jesus.