Jamaica

Community is a blessing—the people you know, the people you meet each day, the ones you share your life with. Canaan Heights is a good community, like so many in Jamaica, neighbors helping each other, but all of them quite poor. This woman lived in a one room shack typical of the area, built out of scrap, with no running water or electricity. When the rains came, as they do every day this time of year, she huddled with her children in one bed and put pots around to catch the water leaking through the roof.

"I lift up my eyes to the hills—from where will my help come?" (Ps 112) What can help Jamaica? How is God to save it?

I am with Food for the Poor in Jamaica, seeing the work they are sponsoring. Today we stopped at the Golden Age Home, a care facility for the disabled. It was a chance to meet the people we raise money to help, and to find out what they need, and it is always profoundly moving, reminding me why I am compelled to continue in this ministry.

For this woman, it was simple. She came running up and hugged every new visitor, and she was happy. All she needed was a hug.

Today I head out for Jamaica, my first stamp in a new passport. I am going to see the work of Food for the Poor, a charity that I have worked with for years. In the airport this morning I had an overwhelming sense of starting out all over again, as if I were still a teenager, knowing nothing, having no idea what to expect. All of these people, going to who knows where. The beauty of this morning, the beginning of a day full of blessings, but who knows what?