Breaking Bread: News from Emmaus House

November 15, 2011

Dear Friends:

This is the third issue of our e-mail newsletter, intended to inform you of the activities at Emmaus House.  We want to alert you to particular needs and to give you a clearer sense of how you are helping our ministry to the poor by your prayers, donations, and support.

RESPONSE TO NEEDS

As we reported earlier, our president, Kirk Barrell, has offered amatching challenge grant of 50% for all donations received before December 20, 2011. To those who have responded to this challenge, MANY, MANY THANKS!  We received $2,296.70 for July’s contributions, $2,717.50 to match August’s contributions, and we expect to receive $4,400.00 to match September’s contributions plus $762.50 to match contributions received in October.  Thanks to each of you who have given, and special thanks to Kirk.  We are, unfortunately, in little danger of exceeding the maximum matching amount of $20,000;  we hope we will receive special contributions from each of you to help us take advantage of this generous matching gift.

A volunteer has come forward to help with up-dating our web site, and we are very thankful for his offer.  Hopefully, by the next issue of this newsletter, this work will be under way.

We received many generous gifts gathered and delivered by the students of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in Crestwood, Westchester County, NY.  They brought canned tuna, baby food, canned vegetables, warm winter clothing, and new, practical underwear. 

We also received a truck-load of clothing from the people of Virgin Mary & St. Pachomius Coptic Orthodox Church in Stony Point, Rockland County, NY.  They gave things for infants, children, and adults which were very, very much appreciated.

Another major donation was received from the people of the Greek Orthodox Church of the Archangels, in Stamford, CT;  they brought many bags of blankets, towels, sheets, and warm clothing. 

We hope to receive a badly-needed refrigerator in the near future.

NEEDS

We are still in need of: a desktop computer to replace an old one in our business office; a vanity for the third floor bathroom; and cash donations specifically so that we can silver coat and repair our roofbefore winter at an estimated cost of $2,000.00.

Please consider coordinating a food drive at your church or place of business to benefit Emmaus House.   A volunteer is available to pick up donations in Rockland County, and another can pick up some donations from congregations in New York City and parts of New Jersey.   If you could help with these sorts of pick-ups, please let us know. 

The people whom we serve need warm clothing, especially coats.  Those living on the street are in special need of socks, underwear, thermal underwear, hats, gloves, scarves, and gently worn shoes/boots.  And we need blankets, quilts, sheets, towels, and washcloths, especially for those in shelters.  At this time, we are unable to store summer items, so please give us only winter articles.

FEEDING THE HOMELESS

Emmaus House has begun working with the Saturday afternoon ministry of St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Manhattanville, feeding the homeless at four Harlem locations.  Sometimes we have food left over from our Saturday morning City Harvest distributions, and this food now gets distributed to the homeless.  Some of our volunteers have joined them in distributing food, including a group of young adults from St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church in Little Falls, NJ.

RECENT EVENTS

In October, we were privileged to welcome Orthodox thinker, author, and peace activist Jim Forest for another visit.  He gave a talk, “Love in Action:  the challenging life of Dorothy Day”, about the co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement.  The talk was especially relevant to us, as Dorothy Day was the mentor of the founder of Emmaus House, Fr. David Kirk;  some of the themes of the Emmaus House ministry, especially what Dorothy Day called “personalism”, are drawn from her life and work;  and Jim Forest worked with both Dorothy Day and with Fr. David in the early days of Emmaus House.

In the past few weeks, we have also gotten our van back into safe working order and on the road.  Volunteer Charles Bailey drives it for us, picking up food donations, transporting volunteers and guests, and using it to shop for building supplies.  He even took a group of volunteers on a blessed day-trip to visit Pacem in Terris in Warwick, NY, the home and sculpture garden of Frederick Franck;  his drawing of Christ’s breaking bread at Emmaus, a gift given to Fr. David Kirk, hangs in the House, and was featured in a recent newsletter.  We hope to use the van in distributing food to the homeless;  we are praying for a base of dependable volunteers to expand this ministry.

OUR DIRECTOR

Our small, all-volunteer ministry tends to revolve quite closely around our Director, Julia Demaree.  Several weeks ago, Julia suffered a nasty fall and has been recovering slowly.  So far, we have had to cancel only two “giving room” sessions and one distribution of City Harvest food, but there may be further reductions in service in the near future.  Please pray for Julia and for her healing. 

OUR BUILDING

The building at 160 West 120^th Street is our main asset, and it is necessary to the continuation of our ministry to the poor.   With the help of many volunteers, we had been able to get the building into reasonably good working order.  But demolition work has been under way at an adjacent building, with which we share a wall, and our building has suffered damage.  It has been nerve-wracking and distracting to live with the noise, the cracks in our walls, the loosened bricks, and flooding in 3 different areas of our building.  We have had to spend money for emergency repairs and to replace damaged property.  Please pray for speed and efficiency in the work of the NYC Department of Buildings and in the work of our insurance company; please pray for God’s mercy on the owners of the neighboring building; and please pray that those who try to serve the Lord at Emmaus House would have perseverance through this.  One positive thing has come from this disruption:  as we have no safe, dry place to store clothing, we donated our summer items to some missionaries who were returning to Santo Domingo from a Pentecostal church here in Harlem; the volunteers who made the delivery were deeply touched by their expressions of profound gratitude and Christian fellowship.  We also shared some clothing with St. Mary’s, Manhattanville, which also has a ministry of distributing clothing, and we look forward to distributing clothing to the homeless as we serve with St. Mary’s on Saturday afternoons.

THANKSGIVING

We will be receiving special Thanksgiving food from Here’s Life Inner City, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.  In the past, we have also received donations of turkeys, and we hope to be privileged to distribute donated turkeys again this year, but we need to wait and see what is provided.  At this point, there are far more families requesting turkeys than there are turkeys expected.  Any special contributions of Thanksgiving food that you can give, especially turkeys, would be very much appreciated.  Also, any extra time that you can volunteer would be appreciated at this busy time.

WORDS TO PONDER

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”

- Jesus, from John 15: 9-12

“There is harm not only in trying to gain wealth but also in excessive concern with even the most necessary things. 
It is not enough to despise wealth, but you must also feed the poor and, more importantly, you must follow Christ."

- St. John Chrysostom

"What does God want me to do? ... The answer was: God is not interested in where you are or what you do...He is interested only in the quality and quantity of the love you give.  Nothing else. Nothing else."

 - Mother Gavrilia