Blessings at Christ House

My girlfriends and I were given the great opportunity to be of service the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We volunteered at Christ House. What an amazing time we had! Serving others allows you to remember to count your blessings and that even Jesus came to serve.

Mark 10:45(NRSV)

⁴⁵ For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

In late September, I reached out to some of my girlfriends and asked them would they be interested in volunteering with me. We always say that we’re too busy and we wish we had more time to catch up so this was a way for us to do both. My friends heard the call and answered. I am thankful.

Although our first group effort lacked two members we made due. Christ House has a small kitchen so they can only have 3-5 volunteers at a time. So, we had three, including me. There were all men there (except for the nurses) and they were so kind and thankful for our efforts. We didn’t cook this time. We made sandwiches and salads and a side of fruit.

We were so blessed by this experience on Saturday that I was reminded of the blessings of: friendship, life, health, family and housing. Thanks abounded and we were given the blessing of being able to do some good will. They stopped and talked to us and the chef was so wonderful that we decided that we would volunteer our time at Christ House again.

A little about Christ House:

Christ House opened in December 1985 as the first 24-hour residential medical facility for homeless persons in the United States. Today, Christ House is still the only facility of its kind in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area where over 6,000 people experience homelessness every day. To the best of our knowledge, there are only 13 stand-alone residential medical facilities for the homeless like Christ House in all of the U.S. and Canada. Since our inception, we have had over 8,000 admissions.

Patients are admitted to Christ House from area hospitals, shelters, clinics, and medical outreach projects. They suffer from a variety of illnesses and injuries including cancer, hypertension and stroke, liver disease, kidney failure, diabetes and related amputations, HIV/AIDS, respiratory disease, major lacerations, fractures, and ulcerations of the skin. Many are malnourished, anemic, depressed, and desperately disconnected from healthy sources of support.

Here are some photos: