Today my wife and I made a number of home visits to some people in need on behalf of our St. Vincent De Paul (SVDP) conference. We were able to help a few struggling families with beds, appliances and furniture. Also at a SVDP meeting last week of all the conferences on the North Side of Milwaukee I mentioned again my idea of restructuring the way calls for home visits are handled. Rather than using an outdated church boundary system to make home visits to those most in need. One of the objections I got for this idea was that persons in nicer neighborhoods, like where I live, do not want to make home visits in poorer neighborhoods.

These two experiences remind me of a story that happen to us when we were members of St. Vincent De Paul conference in Madison. Since our neighborhood was in a fairy middle class, like most neighborhoods in Madison are, we were called on to make home visits on two poorer areas in Madison on the north and south side. In one of these neighborhoods there was a housing project that had been a source of some violence. We were told that we did not need to make home visits in this area. However, my wife and I decided to make a home visit to a needy family in this housing project.

There was a bitter winter storm the day we choose to make the home visit. Although the streets were full of newly fallen snow we managed to make our way to the housing project. As we approach the housing project we noticed a group of young adult African makes standing on the street outside of the project. The streets had not been plowed but we managed to park our car, lock it and make out way to the apartment. After our home visit we went back to the car that was still there as was the group of young adult African American males. We were about to make our getaway but found our car stuck in the snow. We just could not get our car out of the snow. Suddenly we noticed the group of young men quickly making their way to our car. With the stories of violence in the neighborhood in our minds we were scared. The men got to our car and started to push us out of the snow. After we got out, I opened our window and thanked them.

I told a few of the people who warned me at the meeting last week that others would not want to make home visits in poor neighborhoods, especially those in predominately African American neighborhoods, not to be so quick to judge other Christians. As we learned that snowy day in Madison the poor have much to teach us about generosity. Now I know why Jesus told his early followers over and over again: “Do Not Be Afraid”.

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