Another tale to tell.

I have a friend.

Three months ago, she was hit by a car while cycling to work.

Her bike was destroyed, she suffered some neck and back trauma, but her brain bucket did its job and she escaped without injury to her brain or her limbs.

The injuries to her neck and back resulted in an inability to fulfill her job as an elementary PE instructor. She lost time from work, suffered a significant loss of income and now, three months later has lost her rental home.

She is homeless. Her two teenage children are homeless. Her adult daughter (husband is currently serving in Iraq) and granddaughter also now find themselves homeless.

I spent the better part of yesterday helping them move their possessions to a storage unit. It was tough and dirty work. It was chaotic. It was overwhelming.

Our family is helping as much as we can. We've paid for the storage unit through August and we helped connect our friend with a neighborhood family that is traveling to Guatemala on a mission trip. They needed a house and pet sitter. Our friend needed a home. It was a good match.

Today when I go to the Farmer's Market, I will pick up some fresh veggies and run it by the house with a Safeway gift certificate to help the family purchase groceries.

Yesterday, my friend confided that she had approached our church several weeks ago for financial assistance. The church's response was to supply my friend with a list of homeless shelters and to also offer her a spot in the church's next Good Sen$e Class ( a Christian money/budget/management course).

We are a large church (6000 strong). We have a Benevolent Fund. Those funds are intended to help in situations such as these.

I contacted the Pastor of Caring and Neighborhood ministries and inquired why my friend (a long time member of our church) did not find aid (was not even offered prayer) and I was told it was not my place to question this decision. There were confidentiality issues.

Ok, confidentiality issues. I know some of the issues.

My friend married last Fall. Because she was a divorced woman, the church required that she take a divorce recovery class and that she and her fiance also attend pre-marital counseling. Which they both did. The church ultimately did not endorse the marriage. They married anyway and it ended badly.

Strike one. (Won't follow church leadership's direction.)

My friend has approached the church for financial support on previous occasions.

Strike two. (Financially imprudent.)

There are several other issues which I won't bother detailing because my brain already hurts but suffice it to say.....

Strike three.

Sorry Charlene. You are OUT! No help for you!

Ugh.

This experience follows closely on the heels of Saturday's Drunk Homeless Guy experience. Now granted, I don't have all of the details/reasons why the church refused to assist my friend; and apparently in the eyes of church leadership at least, it isn't my place to know.

I suppose my question at this point is this:

How is the church using all of the money we pay into the Benevelent Fund?

Wow. Do you suppose I even have the right to ask that question? More importantly, do I have a right to the answer?

You know, I'm just flabbergasted. A woman went to her church. A mother with dependent children, a long time church member, a woman who's volunteered and loved her brothers and sisters in Christ, went to her church in a time of need and she was turned away. Just like Drunk Homeless Guy, she was turned away.

This woman, this friend of ours has suffered so much loss this past year. She's experienced the loss of her marriage, the loss of her brother to colon cancer, the loss of their home and now she must also face the impending loss of her own mother to cancer.

Oh sweet Jesus, where are you in all of this?

The loss, the incredible loss. The chaos, the uncertainty, the pain of it all......it just overwhelms me.

I can't even imagine how my friend must feel......