June 30, 2008

Our troubled economy is sending shock waves through the country which directly affects the Edmundite Missions. While sitting here writing this letter, I am fighting an uphill battle to feed, clothe and aid the rural poor. Now more than ever, I face huge challenges as food, supplies and fuel prices skyrocket and the needy sink deeper into poverty and despair.

I’ve cut our budgets to the bare bones to get us through these rough times, but I don’t want to cut food and outreach to the downtrodden poor. Since January, the Missions have seen a marked slowdown in gifts as tough times hit people nationwide. The downturn makes it difficult to pay the many bills I face in serving God’s people in four rural counties. While other agencies in our region cut back services because of skyrocketing gas and food prices, I must do all I can to care for the destitute, who are already suffering.

My heart goes out to the working poor like Eunice Harrison, who supports her family as a housekeeper for a local nursing home. She works long hours for low pay and sees most of it go into her gas tank, while her rent, utility and food bills use up the rest.

I met Eunice and her daughters at Bosco Food Kitchen in Selma last week on one of her rare days off. “We’re thankful we can walk to Bosco for a meal, Father,” Eunice said, “Because gasoline eats up most of my paycheck every week and we are barely getting by.”

Eunice was too proud to ask, but I know she was thankful when a Missions’ outreach worker helped her add some gas to her car before she took her youngest, who suffers seizures, to the Children’s Hospital in Birmingham, 90 miles away.

I hurt for families like Melvin Jones in Vredenburgh, who was laid off from his job at a furniture factory because of the housing slump. Melvin is the sole caretaker of his family and his two adopted nieces. “I don’t know what we’re going to do, Father, because there just aren’t many jobs out there,” he said, sweating heavily while raking a neighbor’s yard to earn gas money for a job hunt.

Sadie Reynolds, 92, who lives in rural Wilcox County, is diabetic and can’t afford the food she needs to stay healthy because costs have outpaced her small monthly stipend. She can’t afford to pay someone to drive to the store, 35 miles away. Sadie depends on home cooked meals delivered by Missions outreach workers in Wilcox County every week.

Every day our outreach ministers hear from families who used to be able to make it by carefully watching every penny. Now their meager wages can’t keep pace with the ever-rising cost of necessities.

“It’s heartrending to see hard-working people forced to choose between buying food for their children or filling the gas tank to go to work,” said outreach minister Doris Smith in Wilcox County, one of the poorest in the nation. “I know they are ashamed for their children’s sake, since they’ve taken pride on making on their own all these years.”

Just like the poor we serve, the Edmundite Missions have been hit by high gas and food costs. Our local food bank doesn’t have the vegetables, meat and milk we need to feed elders, children and families, so we have to pay higher grocery store prices.

Like you, we face $4 a gallon gas at the pump and we cover hundreds of miles every day getting children to preschool, visiting the ill and homebound and delivering meals and food boxes to the isolated poor.

I come to you because I have nowhere else to turn for help through these challenging times. It costs $200 to buy the chicken needed for soup to feed the hungry one week at Bosco Food Kitchen. For $48, you can buy gas to deliver food boxes and meals to homebound elders.

The strain and stress of stretching dollars drains me, but I strive daily to follow the example of our founder Father Frank Casey: “Do the best we can with what little we have to serve those most in need.” I think of dear Miss Sadie and how hard she has worked all her life. I want to ensure that Sadie and others like her get the lifesaving help they need.

Your generous sacrificial gift will keep our wheels rolling on the rough roads of rural Alabama as we reach out with Christ’s love to “the least of these.”

Prayin for You,

Father Richard Myhalyk, S.S.E.