Help Children and Families This Christmas
November 11, 2008
No jolly Santa will visit the Crenshaw family this year. Christmas will be like any other day. The children will bundle up in several layers of old clothes to stay warm and listen to a few songs on the radio.
Bags of noodles and chicken broth cooked on a hot plate will fill empty stomachs to keep the little ones from crying themselves to sleep on Christmas night.
For hundreds of families and elders in the rural South, Christmas is a dream as far away as the North Pole.
“We can’t even think about Christmas this year, Father,” Mrs. Geraldine Crenshaw said. “We’re just trying to keep a roof over our children’s heads and find a way to buy food and pay the bills to keep the heat on.”
Paying bills is more of a challenge as the economic downturn hits Selma. Ernest Crenshaw is a bricklayer who has watched several jobs disappear this fall. “His boss had a construction job lined up but it got pulled,” she said. “He can only find bricklaying work about one day a week.” The rest of the week he scrambles to find work as a day laborer—jobs that are hard to come by in these tough times.
Recently the family was forced out of their small four-room house when the new landlord doubled the rent. They now live in a drafty apartment with no refrigerator or stove.
Geraldine suffers a rare disabling disease that damages the muscles in her feet and legs, making walking difficult. Though in pain much of the time, she keeps her focus on her children. “They come first in our lives and in our hearts,” she said quietly, stifling a tear. “It hurts so bad that we can’t do more for them.”
Her biggest worry is her baby boy, who was born a year ago with only one kidney. Doctors tell her not to let him get sick for fear that an infection might compromise his only working kidney.
“Every day is a struggle, but we have faith,” she said. “My husband and I teach our children that Jesus loves them, even if they don’t have enough food to eat or a little gift to open on Christmas Day.”
Like hundreds of families we serve, Crenshaws are fighting to provide the bare necessities for their children—shelter, clothes, food. Like others, they have experienced job lay offs, crippling illness and rapidly rising food costs while trying to help relatives who are worse off than they are. Too many children we serve stay sick most of the winter because there’s not enough money for medicine, nutritious food or heat.
Our outreach missionaries are already hearing from desperate families who have nowhere to turn to give their children hope this Christmas. I know we will hear more heartbreaking stories of loss and need this holiday season. Already in October, record-breaking freezing cold temperatures have me worried. How will I find the funds to provide heat for the rural poor during these long cold winter months?
At the same time, I hate to see a little child go without at the festival of Christ’s birth. So many children in my neighborhood already are needy – they wear ragged hand-me-downs, miss meals, and sleep on the floor, since there are no beds. When I see the precious Crenshaw children, I know I will do whatever I can to bring smiles to their expectant faces—and those of other little children—this holy season.
In these tough times, I don’t know how I will pay the staggering bills for food, heat and critical needs of the desperate poor. Your Christmas gift of $304 will bring joy to eight families by filling food bags with nutritious meals and providing simple gifts for children and elders. It costs $38 to fill one bag of food for the Christmas holidays.
I need your help to make simple Christmas dreams come true for families like the Crenshaws, who work hard, face chronic illness and battle daily with rising costs.
You are in my prayers every day. I will also remember you when I celebrate Holy Mass on Christmas Day. Your gift can make our Blessed Mother’s prayer of Christ’s coming a reality for the poor we serve every day: How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior! He has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things. Luke 1:53
Celebrating the Newborn King,
Rev. Richard Myhalyk, S.S.E.
