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Beacon Newsletter - Winter 2008
Reflections From the Director
Everyday I ask myself, how do we remain a source of light in times of darkness when daily requests for our services continue to increase? Recently I received a newsletter from a friend who for years has been the executive director of a similar ministry in Florida. She began her newsletter article by saying it was the ‘hardest one I have ever written’. Why? Because of the overwhelming flow of people seeking services at her agency. A few days later I talked with another friend. He runs a large faith-based ministry in North Carolina. He told me he was looking at a major reduction of programs in order to keep their ministry open. Like the leaders of these two nonprofits, we continually strive to provide people with their basic needs while working to remain fiscally solvent.
What does it really mean to be a source of light in times of darkness in these economic hard times? Years ago when I was in California, I knew a woman who grew up in a family of “Okies”. Her childhood was spent in Oklahoma during the time of the Dust Bowl. It was a time when hundreds of thousands of families lost everything because the land dried up and dust blew so thick people could not see across their fields. This elderly Okie was part of a group in my church that I asked, “What Christmas do you remember to be your best?” “The Christmas morning my sibling and I awoke to find one orange in each of our stockings,” was her reply. She never knew how her parents managed an orange for each child. But their love was always symbolic of the orange she found in her stocking.
I don’t want to minimize the importance of assisting a family with paying their power bill so they can have heat and lights for their children. I don’t want to convey the notion that it is enough to give a biscuit when children need three square meals a day. I don’t want to be understood as saying it’s fine to just give a child a toy when his grandmother needs food to keep away hunger or to pay the rent so they don’t become homeless. But I do want to be understood as believing the light which shines through all the assistance given at Lighthouse Ministries is the respect, compassion and dignity shown to all who come to the Ministry. We will continually have to make hard assessments as to our financial capabilities I am sure, but one thing I am positively certain of is there will be no shortage of compassion and caring given out by the Participant Advocates (volunteers) and staff.