Finding Direction: The Wind Vane Chronicles

She lived out in the deep Piney Woods of East Texas, a good ways out from Nacogdoches.

She was 19 years old and married to a small thin man in his late 30s or early 40s who looked to be twice his age and was crippled up in his left arm from a working accident some years before.  Thus, he was disabled and unable to work any more, at all, although the work he’d done before was just as a laborer.

She had four little girls of her own, although she was just a girl herself.

They were destitute.  They lived in a small shack consisting of three room, with no bathroom, far off the nearest paved road among the tall, matchstick pines.  Being summer, it was swelteringly hot and humid, but they had no air conditioning, of course.  Nor did they have much furniture.  In fact, other than in the kitchen, I recall none.  The three little girls and baby all slept on bare mattresses reeking with the strong odor of urine.  They may have had diapers for the youngest, but the nearest place to do laundry was in town, and that cost money they didn’t have.  Neither did we see any clothes, anywhere.

Their only transportation was an old dilapidated pickup, and it was not there when we arrived.  The doors were wide open, so we went up the flimsy back steps to the kitchen and went in to look around.  We saw a small table with bowls on them, a couple of chairs and some cheap bent spoons.  The small refrigerator’s door did not shut well and it was full of big ants, but very little else.  Ants crawled all across the tiny kitchen, including on the counter, where we found the remains of their pitiful lunch.  Water gravy and water Koolaid, with a bit of sugar in it.  There were no signs of anything else to eat.

We had wanted to see them to visit, but instead we just left the big boxes of food, produce, milk and staples, for them to have when they got home.  We left some small clean clothes, too, for the girls, and took note of what else they needed.  It was a long list, because they needed everything, beginning with a habitable place to live.

We were not only saddened, but sickened at what we saw.  The wretchedness of the place; the poverty.  But, for the moment we had done all we knew to do.

We found out later that the reason they were not “home” was because all of them had driven to nearby Lufkin to the welfare department to try to receive a bit more financial help then what he was getting.  The girl told us that what we saw in their shack was the very last of the food that they had.  The water gravy and Koolaid.  They had nothing else.

When they returned home, completely dejected and hungry, they were overjoyed to find the food we brought.

My friend, a young Christian mother of four, herself, in her 30s, and I – just a married college student, myself, with a little one, David, who was two years old, had driven back into town by then.  I pondered what I had seen and experiences.  I deeply identified with this young girl, as I was expecting a baby soon, and would have two little ones at 21.

We lived in student housing in a small two bedroom apartment that was $67 a month, which we could not afford, either, but we managed the the four married couples’ buildings around our square and that paid our rent.  My husband went to school full time and worked all kinds of odd jobs at night to help with bills, too.  One job, sitting in a chicken house where the incubators were all night long to keep the eggs from burning, paid 33 cents an hour.  It was a miserable job, but we needed the money.

Yet, when I compared my life to hers, and she was a brand new Christian, I felt deeply blessed.

We did not leave them as we found them.  Charlotte, my friend, went back repeatedly to help them and even got the girl a decent paying job in town soon after.  Charlotte made sure she was able to come worship with us and bring her little daughters.  The girl dressed them up as best she could with the hand-me-downs and they looked shiny and sweet.

They are able to move into town and the church helped them greatly.  Their lives improved very much due to the love and care and benevolence of the compassionate Christian community there in Nacogoches.  It was inspiring to me to see true Christianity in action – Jesus love – and the impressions of that girl’s life have stayed with me until now.

This did not happen during the deep Depression of the 1930s.  This happened in 1966, and happens still today in many places all around us here in America, if only we will take the time to really open our eyes and see as Jesus would have us see.

My daughter, who lives in an a far suburb of Dallas told me a few years ago that she did not know any poor people.  (Although she lives out in the country and has trailer homes on both sides of their property.)  I was stunned.  I told her she would find them all around her, even there, if she would just look.  She took my advice, and did.  Since then, she has been involved in ministry with her congregation of Christians and on several mission trips outside this country, even.  We financially supported her in doing those things and have supported her morally and in every way we could to encourage her in her work.

Tom and I live in a very poor area of the south here in Mississippi where people such as the girl in the woods live, as well.  May I ever seek out those I can help in some way – as God’s child – a Christian – and not forget they are all around me too.  To get to our house in the woods, we drive by dozens and dozens of run down trailers and trailer parks that look like junk yards.  They are here.

I hope you will be encouraged today to look more closely around where you live to find someone you can help – in Christ’s name – to show them the love of God and Christ even in their lives!

Many blessings to each of you today.  Dee