Serving Our Homeless Neighbors

By Pam Herman

Interfaith Hospitality Network of Rochester (IHN) is a network of area churches that work together to help homeless families with children under the age of 16 by providing them a place to sleep, food to eat, and a caring, safe environment while they get back on their feet. These are families just like yours who need some help. We can only serve 14 people at any given time. There are currently 39 churches and over 1300 volunteers involved in our area. It takes 30-50 volunteers each week to serve our guests. They stay in a church from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. every day and the churches provide the evening hospitality. The guests go to the Day Center House during the daytime to work with a social worker to get reestablished.

I have been working with IHN at Gethsemane Lutheran Church for three years now and am so blessed that God allows me to serve Him in this capacity. I enjoy being an overnight host. The children are fabulous and I love to play games with them and, on occasion, help them with their homework. About a year ago a family, who was originally from Sudan, was in the IHN program and the mother could not speak English very well. When I walked into the church she was trying to play “Jesus Loves Me” on an old piano. The song was recognizable but she was playing it in thewrong key. God showed me that day that music truly is the “universal language.” I offered to give her a piano lesson— marking the keys and the old hymnal with the letters we worked away for a couple of hours. I knew God put us together that night; at the end we each sang the song in our own language as she plunked out the keys. She later made me a beaded bracelet.

Calvary will serve as a “Buddy Church” to Gethsemane Lutheran. We will serve 4 times a year. Areas to volunteer are: overnight chaperone (this entails sleeping at the host church— you have your own room), evening host and meal preparation (my friend and I pair up on this duty and each buys food items and goes to the church to prepare the meal), and van drivers (to bring the families to the day house in the morning and/or return them to the host church for the evening—IHN has a van).

If you would like to learn more about this amazing program, please attend one of the many training sessions set out below. Our first opportunity to “Buddy” will be the week of November 4-11. If you have any other questions please feel free to contact Pam Herman.

I was hungry and you fed Me, thirsty and you gave Me drink. I was a stranger and you received Me in your home, naked and you clothed Me….even as you have done this for the least of My brothers, you have done them to Me.(Matthew 25:35-36, 40).