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Homeless Man Now Feeds Hundreds a Day: Finding our empowering purpose through service

Homeless man now feeds hundreds a day: Finding our empowering purpose through service

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In The Daily Article for December 16, 2020

  • “Thank you, Father God, I found my purpose in life”
  • Six decades of progress and the path to community
  • Martin Luther describes a “true Christian”

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Anthony Delgado lived on the streets of Atlanta, Georgia, panhandling to feed his drug addiction. One day, a man and woman told him he should go to the VA hospital. No one around him saw the couple, however. He started panhandling again but developed chest pain. A man stopped to help and gave him a token for a train ride to the hospital. When Delgado stepped onto the train, the man had vanished.

Delgado made it to the hospital, joined a rehab program, and got help from a pastor. He told the minister the story of the vanishing couple and the man who gave him the train token, and the pastor replied, “Believe it or not, there are angels.”

Delgado got a job and then, after a church service about obedience, took bags of bread to the spot where he used to sleep on the streets. Within forty-five minutes, all the bread and pastries were gone. “As I was driving back, I started crying,” he said. “Thank you, Father God, I found my purpose in life.”

Now Delgado has seven employees, two buildings, seventeen freezers, and two trucks in the organization he founded, I Care Atlanta, Inc. His nonprofit feeds hundreds of people a day and also has a GED training center and financial planning center. During the holidays, they’ve been distributing new toys to kids and holding food drives.

Delgado told a reporter, “We all need to help each other. We’re in a bad state right now. . . . Open your heart. Help your neighbor. Don’t be selfish. This me, me, me attitude is not gonna get us anywhere. It’s just not.”

Did Russians hack our federal agencies?

A scan of today’s news shows how right Delgado is.

A nor’easter will slam parts of the Mid-Atlantic states and New England beginning today, with the potential to be the biggest East Coast storm in years. 2020 set a record for the most natural disasters costing at least $1 billion, costing the insurance industry $76 billion this year.

Russian hackers recently breached multiple federal agencies.

More than a dozen Google services were offline Monday morning, the result of what the company describes as an “internal storage quota issue.”

We learned this morning that California has purchased five thousand body bags and has sixty refrigerated storage units on standby in preparation for a growing death toll from COVID-19. And the Washington Cathedral tolled its funeral bell three hundred times yesterday in memory of the more than three hundred thousand Americans who have died from COVID-19 this year.

We cannot do life by ourselves. Whether recovering from a storm, working on cyber security, or responding to natural disasters and a pandemic, everyone needs the help of someone.

Six decades of progress

Harvard political scientist Robert D. Putnam and Harvard graduate Shaylyn Romney Garrett together have written The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again. They utilize a variety of statistical measures to look at trends in economics, politics, society, and culture, seeking to determine whether things have been improving or deteriorating.

Their research shows that in the last century, America experienced six decades of “imperfect but steady upward progress toward greater economic equality, more cooperation in the public square, a stronger social fabric, and a growing culture of solidarity” (their italics). The reason: “During these decades Americans became—perhaps more than ever before—focused on what we could accomplish together.” Said differently, “Over the first six decades of the twentieth century America had become demonstrably—indeed measurably—a more ‘we’ society.”

However, in the mid-1960s, this trend “abruptly reversed direction. America suddenly found itself in the midst of a clear downturn. Between the mid-1960s and today—by scores of hard measures along multiple dimensions—we have experienced declining economic equality, the deterioration of compromise in the public square, a fraying social fabric, and a descent into cultural narcissism” (their italics).

What will it take for us to return to a culture of “we”? The authors note that our earlier culture of solidarity was inspired and fueled by ministers and theologians who critiqued the “social sins” of the age and called on people and institutions to change. Affirmation of our shared values, collaboration with resources, entrepreneurial leadership, and the engagement of young people were vital then and will be so again today.

“Hushai the Archite was the king’s friend”

As a biblical philosopher, I am not surprised that the upward trend documented by Putnam and Garrett “abruptly reversed direction” in the 1960s. This was when the worldview we know as postmodernism began taking root with its claim that truth claims are personal and subjective. There is no such thing as “truth,” we’re told, only “your truth” and “my truth.” (For more, see my video, “What does the Bible say about truth?“)

However, as the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks demonstrates conclusively in his magisterial work, Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times, morality is essential to a healthy society. We cannot work together effectively unless we trust each other. A team cannot win if its members do what they want to the exclusion of what is best for the team. An orchestra cannot perform well if each member plays “their music” rather than the music the conductor directs.

To return from “I” to “we,” we must do what Anthony Delgado did—we must fulfill our God-given calling to serve others. To this end, let’s close with an obscure chapter in Scripture that arrested my attention this week.

1 Chronicles 27 names twelve commanders of national divisions, thirteen tribal leaders, two treasurers, and the supervisors of farms, vineyards, olive and sycamore trees, stores of oil, herds, camels, flocks, and even donkeys. We find the names of David’s counselors and learn that “Hushai the Archite was the king’s friend” (v. 33). Last in the list is Joab, who was “commander of the king’s army” (v. 34).

Each of them had a purpose that served others. Each illustrates Martin Luther’s maxim, “Since a true Christian lives and labors on earth not for himself but for his neighbor, he does by the very nature of his spirit even what he himself has no need of, but it is needful and useful to his neighbor.”

Who is your neighbor today?

Dr. Jim Denison is the CVO of Denison Forum

Through The Daily Article email newsletter and podcast, DenisonForum.org, social media, interviews, and articles across the internet, Denison Forum reaches 1.8 million culture-changing Christians every month.

With 10.7 million Americans still unemployed and nearly 69% of people saying they would have difficulty meeting their financial obligations if their next paycheck were delayed for a week, WalletHub today released updated rankings for the Cities in the Most Financial Distress During COVID-19, along with accompanying videos and audio files.

In order to take a deeper look into where people are struggling the most financially, WalletHub compared the 100 largest cities without data limitations across nine key metrics. Our data set includes factors like the change in the number of bankruptcy filings between September 2019 and September 2020, the average credit score and the share of people with accounts in distress. Below, you can see highlights from the report, along with a WalletHub Q&A.

Most Distressed Least Distressed
1. Las Vegas, NV 91. Newark, NJ
2. Phoenix, AZ 92. Boise, ID
3. Chicago, IL 93. Irvine, CA
4. Miami, FL 94. Lincoln, NE
5. San Antonio, TX 95. Boston, MA
6. Los Angeles, CA 96. Scottsdale, AZ
7. Fort Worth, TX 97. Anchorage, AK
8. Houston, TX 98. Madison, WI
9. Dallas, TX 99. Jersey City, NJ
10. Austin, TX 100. Fremont, CA

To view the full report and your city’s rank, please visit:
https://wallethub.com/edu/cities-financial-distress/79863

 

WalletHub Q&A

How are cities’ economies linked to people’s well-being?

“If the economy in a city is not doing well, there are fewer opportunities for residents to get a job and become financially successful. This is especially true during the COVID-19 pandemic, as many cities have been forced to institute lockdowns. This impacts key non-essential businesses in the city, such as the tourism industry or sit-in dining, and in turn leads to higher unemployment when businesses must shutter their doors,” said Jill Gonzalez, WalletHub analyst. “The loss of a job, or at least loss of revenue, caused by a diminished city economy can cause people to fall into financial distress. It doesn’t even take a long disruption to hurt people’s well-beings, either – over two thirds of Americans would have trouble meeting their financial obligations if their next paycheck were delayed by just one week.”

How does the closure of schools contribute to financial distress?

“Closing schools increases the number of people in financial distress because it removes the normal supervision of children during the day and places that burden on parents. Parents, especially those with younger children, may have to stay home from work or hire childcare as a result. Households where both parents work may see a sudden drop in income, but the hardest-hit households will be those with single parents,” said Jill Gonzalez, WalletHub analyst. “If it is feasible, businesses should let parents work from home when their children have to do online schooling. The government should also help schools reopen faster by adopting widespread rapid COVID-19 testing, which will prevent infection within schools while giving students the in-person learning they desperately need.”

MANY AMERICAS ARE HUNGRY AND JOBLESS!!!!! Joel Osteen’s Texas megachurch received $4.4M COVID-19 stimulus loan

With his wealth he could have funded this himself! Now a Church owes the government money?

Proverbs 22:7

The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender.

Why is a Pastor and Church taking so much money????????? Joel Osteen is already a millionaire!!!!! I am sorry this is horrible! So much of this stimulus money has been given to out to big, wealthy organizations while so many Americans go hungry, cannot pay rent, out of work….who is watching the chicken house???? No one!!!!! No wonder the Federal Budget is overflowing with red ink! Who is in charge in D.C.? Government welfare to a millionaire!!!!!!!!!!! SHAME! This is showing an unbelieving world what it wants to see from Christians!!! This upsets me to no end! We are in the worst crisis since the Civil War and worst pandemic since the Spanish Flu in 1918 and this happens!!!!!????!!! The Republicans and Democrats could not organize a one car funeral!

Why do some Pastors feel they have to be so wealthy?????
Mark 10:45, NIV: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’”
Televangelist Joel Osteen‘s megachurch in Houston received a $4.4 million Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan.With his wealth he could have funded this himself! Now a Church owes the government money?

The loan received by Osteen’s Lakewood Church was the first time federal lawmakers provided direct financial assistance for a house of worship, the Houston Chronicle reported.

As part of the federal CARES Act that gave coverage to employers to pay for employee wages and other operational costs and needs during the coronavirus pandemic, Lakewood Church received the third-highest loan in the Houston area, according to the Houston Business Journal, citing federal data.

More Here

Joel Osteen’s Net Worth

For Hungry Americans Across The Country, Food Insecurity Crisis Deepens

An uncounted American statistic: the long-term unemployed

US budget deficit up 25.1% in first 2 months of budget year

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