Date:   12/18/2008 3:36:02 PM ( 16 y ago)
Hits:   3,408
URL:   https://www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=1318806

When my boys were young their materialism seemed to grow the more they were exposed to the good life. One Christmas morning my ex and I came into the living room fully dressed. A stunned look crossed between the two of them, and before they could utter a word, in my best command voice orderedthem to get dressed, now.
Silently they skulked off to there room to get dressed. We all piled into the car and headed off. The boys tried to get an explanation from there mother, but for once she didn't spill the beans.
They actually started to speculate that we'd bought a plane or boat. We drove to Camden NJ, one of the worst cities in the US, once world headquarters of Campbell Soup and home of Walt Whitman, now the "arm pit" of the East Coast.

I stopped in the parking lot of a former church, now almost indistinguishable from the surrounding boarded up homes. The Mission was run by a former Marine Gunny who had found the Lord. We helped him serve a Christmas Meal to the forgotten men and women of Camden, white, brown, and black souls who came and ate as one. The boys saw people at there lowest point. The boys could see the hurt and pain in peoples eyes as they accepted food that Christmas morn.

On the ride home we talked about want they witnessed with there eyes and smelled with there noses. The vision and smell of death, but on this day they could take a little pride that they had made a difference for the day. When they opened there gifts that afternoon, with the house filled with the aroma of pine and turkey, the boys moved slowly to open each present savoring its content verse ripping and tearing off the paper. We did the same thing for the next 8 yrs. They were all great CHRISTMAS's
Find a shelter, old age home, mission take your daughter and open her eyes to the real world.

Semepr Fi, Bill
 

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