An Update & A Challenge

Hello, fellow Kwikitters!

It has been quite a while since our last post. Some friends from Bradenton/Sarasota, the University of Tampa, USF, and Onething Prayer Center and I have been coming together every Tuesday at 9pm to feed, clothe, assist, encourage, and love on a group of temporary homeless people that live around Gaslight Park in Downtown Tampa.

Often times, people consider "community" as a group of people living independently in the same geographic space. Webster defines a community as "a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage."

I think we can and should take this a step further. What if living in community with one another meant more than a casual "hello" in passing? What if living in community meant sharing life together - celebrating our successes and joys, working through our fears, sharing each others burdens, picking each other up when we fell...?

This week, we had the opportunity to do just that. A friend of ours at the park mentioned his daughter had a brain hemorrhage and died this past weekend. She lived in Wichita, KS with her mom. Her funeral is Saturday and he had no money or means to get to Kansas to bury his daughter. One of the girls and I met him the next day at a library and planned to purchase a bus ticket for him. It turned out that a relative of his purchased him a plane ticket and now all he needed was $3.75 for a bus pass to the laundromat and airport. We sat together and listened as he shared his love for his daughter and how he was going to miss her - how he didn't sleep at all the night before and realized it's going to take him a while to be o.k. We gave him the money for his bus and food along the way. He was moved to tears and overwhelmed by our support. I told him, "This is what we SHOULD be doing all the time." We shared a quick prayer for safe travels and heart healing and went our separate ways. We can't wait to see him again when he gets home. Can't wait to share another hug, a smile, a laugh, a meal...

In light of the Thanksgiving season where most individuals gather with friends and family, I encourage and challenge you to pursue this idea of "community" further in your own family and circle of friends. How can you go beyond the casual, expected, and formal "thank you" among those distant relatives this season?

Love, Hope, Peace & Joy,
Meg