"And if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday."
-Isaiah 58:10

I had the privilege of accompanying members of the high school youth group on a service project to feed the homeless tonight. Even though I don't regularly work with these students, I was so proud of them and so impressed by their maturity and leadership. Each week throughout the year an offering is taken and in December and May the students choose a service project they would like to do. Tonight they cooked more than 200 hotdogs and we went to feed the homeless who live under the Claiborne Bridge and we also fed a large number of people who live in tents just outside city hall.

Imagine this, there is a park outside city hall where you might expect to find business men and women eating their lunch or talking on the phone. Instead there are probably 100 tents or more covering the grass and two abandoned buildings close by house more people on their steps. The crazy thing is that the tents these people live in came from city hall! Tomorrow, however, those people may lose their "land" as two buildings close by are going to be demolished and the area will need to be fenced off for safety reasons.

But all the politics aside, our students were great at engaging people and realizing that they have so much to give. Our students would be considered poor by most standards because of where they live and family situations, but they were still able to raise money to care for those with even less. They were also able to see the gratitude of these people and as a group they were able to discuss why these people could be thankful even though they had nothing.

There is talk about wanting to do this sort of project once a month, and we'll see how that pans out, but I know our students have learned a great deal and this will not be something they soon forget.