Simple pleasure
Some weeks ago we got a call for help from a woman who had just moved out of a down town hostel for
women with children into local transitional housing. After being buzzed through the entry we walked
across the sunlit courtyard up a flight of stairs and into a spotlessly clean apartment where we met
Sandra and her son Jamie (not their real names). As we got acquainted I looked around and noticed that
the apartment was empty – completely empty.
“When did you move in? “ I asked
“3 days ago” replied Sandra.
“Where are you sleeping?”
“On the floor” and with that she took my wife and me on a tour of the two bedroom apartment and showed me the
bedrooms where she and Jamie were sleeping empty except for two carry on size suitcases stacked neatly in the
corner of each closet.
“Oh my gosh, but you need everything!” my wife said as I began to think of how we could help.
We talked some more and found out that Sandra had been in a shelter run by the Union Gospel Mission and that to
help her get back on her feet, they were going to provide her with furniture and some beds. We talked some more
and once we found out that she did not have a car, we realized that we would need to take her to the St Vincent de
Paul store in Burien since she needed way more stuff than she and her son could ever manage to carry on a bus. So
we arranged to collect Sandra and Jamie, after the Union Gospel Mission had delivered her furniture, so that she
would know what size beds she had.
The following Saturday we collected them both and drove them to the store where while my wife helped her find
bed sheets and towels, Jamie and I became entranced by the wide range of sophisticated space artillery toys the
store had that day. Reluctantly I left Jamie to choose a couple of toys and helped select and test some kitchen
appliances. We filled two carts and wrote a voucher for just over $200; on the way home, there wasn’t and inch of
spare space in either the car or the trunk; Jamie played happily with his neutron gun as my wife and Sandra chatted
about what she had chosen.
As we were driving we learned that she was a Catholic and she said the one thing she wanted to do was to start
going to mass again but she hadn’t found a local church yet. We showed her our church which happened to be no
more than a 10 minute walk away. Back at her apartment we were both blown away by the quality condition of the
furniture that UGM had given her. The three of us dragged the mattresses upstairs and set them in the rooms and
helped unpack all the bedding dishes and kitchen stuff from the store.
The following day we went to our usual mass and there, towards the back of the church were Sandra and Jamie.
We went over and welcomed them and offered to drop them back at her apartment as we had a vacuum cleaner
for her that we no longer needed. When we walked, the contrast with how it had looked less than a week earlier
was striking. It was simply furnished with clean furniture, there were glasses and plates in her cupboards as well as
pots and pans, sheets pillows and blankets on the beds and food in her pantry. All of this had been made possible
by the generosity of people that Sandra and Jamie will never meet or know. As we left both felt humbled by the
power of what we had witnessed and been a small part of. A woman who one week earlier had had nothing except
the clothes she and her son could carry, now had a fully furnished apartment and so could begin of a new life;
perhaps she will even find her way back to the church.
However Sandra kept the best news until we were saying goodbye; it was then that she told us that the next day
she started back in school so as to get her GED so that she can get a job.
Thanks be to God.