It's with a sort of bitter sweet sadness that I must now leave these incredible people here in SoFla to return to Missouri and the familial duties that I believe are my obligation, having learned the things I've learned along the way. Now that this time here is drawing to a close, it becomes increasingly evident to me that this is the right thing for me to do at this time in my life based primarily on the health of close family as well as the trends that are becoming obvious in the geopolitical landscape of our nation. Will I be back to SoFla one day? I don't know. But I DO know that this has been an amazing life changing experience and those I've encountered along the way have been wonderful sources of encouragement for me through the hard times that have been all too frequent. They have helped me to keep my focus aimed on the positives and have lifted my spirits so that there were just as many wonderful awe-inspiring times as there were hard. All of them in one way or another made it easier to bear the hardships that go hand in hand with such amazing adventures.
So, with my life forever changed and the decision to return home decided, these past few months flew by. As my self imposed departure date has steadily approached, I have planned routes, packed belongings, made check lists, checked those lists, double checked them again, and rushed around to accomplish all the little things that are required to achieve the perfect move. All with the smooth efficiency of a four star general running a flawless campaign. Then, about a month ago I hit a snag. Sort of. Not a snag exactly, more of a hiccup really. The family that has been providing the lions share of the support I receive were asked to leave the house that they'd been renting. I don't know all the details of the events that led up to it, just that all of a sudden and without much warning we were all without a roof over our heads.
Somehow though, we were able to just barely get into a two bed hotel room. Most of us slept on the floor and all of us felt the sting of uncertainty as we prayed our way through the next week or two. The moving jobs that Jeff and I rely on for money slowed down, clients that Jeff's wife rely on for income turned away from us and to top it all off, the family van that she uses was totaled in a freak accident on I-95 after Jeff dropped the older children off at school. So, with fewer moving jobs, a cleaning business incapable of operating, extra time now required by the moving van to pick up the slack from the totaled van thus eating into the work day at a peak business times, money got tighter than we thought was even possible. And then just when things couldn't get any worse it became painfully obvious that it was much more expensive to use the moving van with it's 10-12 miles per gallon twice a day for the round trip to get the kids to and from school, than it was to use the van which got a significantly better fuel to mile ratio. Oh, and with the moving van, that 10-12mpg is on a good day. On the rough days it gets as little as 6 miles to the gallon.
With our patience for each other running low from being cooped up in a tiny hotel room along with the stress of our finely tuned and well oiled yet fragile system crashing down around us. We reached a breaking point. Something had to change. So, we packed everything in the van and headed south because the one thing that we could change was how many miles were in each round trip to the school. We found a room through the same hotel chain much closer to the school. But when we got into the room and saw that it was just ever so slightly smaller and the appliances functioned at a slightly diminished capacity... we reached our lowest point. Ever. Of all time. With morale below it's lowest possible point, unable to feed our community famous breakfast for the homeless and no promise of work tomorrow the people who loved me the most and did more for me than anyone else on my adventures, gave serious and deliberate consideration to packing everything up and some how some way getting back home to their family in Missouri. The only reason they didn't give up was because even that was financially impossible. Giving up, literally was not an option.
So, instead we just accepted what we could. The small things. Things like the fact that the wifi worked better in this room. The fact that somehow every day we made at least the bare minimum in moving jobs to pay for the room for the next day. The fact that even though we couldn't put hot food in the bellies of the hungry hungry homeless we could at least give them a dollar when we pass them by, if not a dollar fifty. Our outlook slowly shifted to one of acceptance relating to our circumstances. As we let go of the demoralizing fear that accompanied our seemingly uncontrolled free fall into the lowest possible moment of our year, we began to get what God was teaching us. That no matter how difficult or impossible things appear to be, God will not fail us. Because even though we reached our lowest low, the kids had food in their bellies each night and a roof over their heads. Things have been slowly improving. We got out of the tiny hotel room and into a small two bedroom apartment. It feels like a palace. I'm sure all of us have a pretty keen appreciation for the space we have now. Oh, and it's right smack dab in between our two homeless hot spots where we do most of our work.
In the aftermath of this period of darkness things are getting better. Slowly. I'm sure that Jeff wishes we had more jobs than we know what to do with, the same as myself, but it IS the middle of the month. A notoriously slow time for the moving business. It should pick up pretty soon and there is the possibility that we might win the bid for a big job that's scheduled for the end of the month. And my plans for exodus? Delayed by more than a month but still in the works. If I put my foot to the pedal and the pedal to the metal, I just might make it out of here at the end of the month.
But here's the thing.
The Kauffman family has embodied the very essence of love in action and I myself have been a major beneficiary of that love.
Yes, I could save up the rest of the money I need to bounce and leave them behind to fend for themselves, and with no small amount of gratefulness in my heart. But... what if I could give back to them some how?
I have witnessed with my own eyes the amazing life changing results of the Kauffman's ongoing efforts to reach the unloved of Miami and their efforts to love them like they've never been loved before. The Kauffman family and their non profit organization ReMerge accept the rejected, feed the hungry and comfort the hurting. The homeless, the unemployed, the broken hearted, the lonely. These are the people who need the Kauffmans so very much more than I ever did. Now I may not be able to replace their totaled van. I may not be able to improve the gas mileage on the moving van, or get them into a house with four bedrooms and a fenced in back yard. I may not be able to do much to cover their needs, but two things I can do. I can give them my support and I can spread the word about what they're doing to make this world a better place for all of us.
Please join me in praying for the Kauffmans and ReMerge as they press forward in their mission to love South Florida's social rejects. And a donation of any amount would be an awesome way to show your support for the work that they do.
Joel, we are going to miss you very much. It's awesome seeing what God has done in your life!
ReplyDelete