This email went out to our list of supporters and interested folks on December 22nd of 2009. We send something like this out most months – if you would like to get on that email list, please go here and give us your email address. Of course, we won’t share your info with anyone, and we won’t fill your inbox with crazy spam. (Or even sane spam.)
Dear Friends,
Typical non-profit wisdom says to send an end of the year introspective email to your list, telling of all the great things your organization did over the last year. I get that email from ministries and causes I personally support and I swear they are all written from the same template.
Doing it that way, I would tell you the victories of the last year – the new churches we partnered with, the dozens of new volunteers we picked up, the new relationships we added. That email would mention the addition of Saturday morning to our weekend breakfast line-up, the new leaders who have emerged from the ranks of our volunteers, the generosity of the 20 or so regular donors who contribute monthly, so we can budget and buy shoes and food and pay me enough to cover my rent and (most months) my groceries.
But in that email, Karen gets lost. Sure, we helped her get prescriptions filled, and she’s one of dozens for whom we bought shoes. But that email would not, could not, tell you anything about the tent she lives in with her husband since there is no shelter they can both be in and be together. You wouldn’t know that one very cold night after dark I got them blankets and sleeping bags that your money provided. Maybe you read on the blog about her being sexually assaulted, but you wouldn’t have heard about us standing in line together to get her seizure medication filled, or about her crying into my shoulder last week when she came to terms with this being her first homeless Christmas. That stuff just doesn’t fit into your typical Christmas email.
But I am OK with that, because we are not your typical homeless ministry. Three winters into this, I still feel funny calling this a ministry or organization – it is just me and some folks like me trying our best to love very broken people no one else wants to love. Over the last year, some of you have came alongside us, physically and financially, and helped us do that. And we are very grateful. We could not do it without you.
Others might be testing us, feeling us out. I understand that. There are lots of folks out there asking for your time and money, and they have awesome statistics and inspiring stories. They have great letterhead and warm and fuzzy emails and tales of success and overcoming adversity. That’s what they do, and they do it well.
But if you want to learn to love people everyone but Jesus has given up on, if you want to be blessed by people who have nothing to give you, if you want to see love win – well, that’s what we do, and we are pretty much the only ones out here doing it. And we would love to have you along for the ride.
(If you want to get your donation in before the end of the year, do that over here. We have to have it postdated by the 31st for it to count for 2009 – plus it helps us in our budgeting for 2010!)
Love Wins. Always.
Hugh Hollowell
