In the mountains of Tunbridge, Vermont lies a future retreat center run by Sue Thomas. Sue is deaf, and has been since childhood. This has never stopped her from doing anything she sets her mind to, including becoming an FBI agent who specialized in lip reading conversations of suspects. The TV show "Sue Thomas FBEye" is based on her years with the bureau. Sue, who also now struggles with MS, lives with a young lady named Debra, her personal assistant, as well as an aide dog.
One of Sue's many projects is Operation Silent Night. Each Christmas Eve for the past eight years, she and Debra have led a team of volunteers to Washington DC to give food, blankets, warm clothes and dignity to the people living on the streets. This year we had the blessing to be part of their team.
It started when I offered for my school, Windham Christian Academy, to collect the gloves the team would be bringing to DC. Sue accepted this offer immediately, and invited us to join her. Before we had even decided if we would go, Sue got back to us and said an anonymous donor would pay for our entire trip. I asked if Sue remembered that we were a family of five. Some time passed, and she said we were all invited on this mission, and we would all be paid for!
So on December 23rd, we got in our little car and headed south on I95. The traffic around New York and northern New Jersey was horrendous! It took us 13 1/2 hours before we arrived at our hotel in Virginia. We were immediately welcomed by the rest of the team, most of whom traveled from Ohio. After an orientation and pizza dinner, we went to our suite and went to bed very excited as to what the morning would bring.
After Christmas Eve breakfast, we began preparing for our trip into DC. The women prepared sandwiches and 'goodie bags' while the men stuffed backpacks with sweatshirts, flashlights, socks, underwear, rain ponchos, and of course, gloves. Once we were all packed and the bus was loaded, we went to do a little sightseeing before the sun went down. We went to Arlington Cemetery where we saw the changing of the guard and the graves of the three Kennedy brothers. As the sun went down it began to flurry; a special touch for us from Maine who associate snow with Christmas. We were ready to go into the city.
The first homeless person we met was a woman laying in a makeshift bed under a bridge. I approached her with another team member, and she was so grateful for our Christmas gifts. By now the temperature was dropping fast, and we learned later that DC had an unusually low temperature on 16 degrees that night, so the blankets and hot cocoa were especially welcome.
The largest crowd we encountered was on the front steps of one of the Smithsonian museums. I don't know for sure how many people came over to our bus and truck, but we were parked there for quite some time giving backpacks, sandwiches, cocoa, blankets and more. Equally important, we spoke with the people. One man told us how he used to volunteer at a homeless shelter in Seattle, and he understood the good feelings we got helping him. A young woman didn't talk about her background except to say, "My hope my mother gets the Christmas Spirit soon." That was a very telling statement. One man said that it was "the best day ever", and everyone was quick to wish us merry Christmas. We were right where we were supposed to be on Christmas Eve.
While the stereotype of the homeless is that they are alcoholics and / or mentally ill, most of the people we spoke with did not come across as either. Yes, a few people clearly had alcohol on their breath, including three men camped in a tunnel, and yes one woman turned down a blanket because she had her own "magic blanket", but these were the exceptions. Sue Thomas, of course, knows DC well, and explained that certain parks attracted the drug and alcohol addicted homeless, but the people we met on the streets tended to be in different circumstances. She called them the 'hard core' homeless. These were the people who made makeshift tents from tarps, garbage bags, cardboard boxes and umbrellas. One woman, for example, was an immigrant from Eastern Europe (her accent confirmed her story) who married an American man who divorced her within a year.
II am so proud of my wife and three daughters, too. Some of my highlights were opportunities my girls and I had to pray with people before saying good-bye. My wife, Sue, was amazing, too. She led the team in most hugs given and received that night.
We never have had a Christmas Eve quite like this one, and we hope to do it again, soon. After all, Christmas started with a couple, not homeless exactly, but strangers camping out in a barn. Before their child - born in that very stable - turned two years old, they fled to a foreign, and sometimes hostile, country, again homeless, in order to preserve the child's life. This same child grew up to teach us that, when we welcome the homeless we welcome him. There is no one closer to the Spirit of Christmas and the heart of God than the people we spent this Christmas with.