May 17, 2010

What’s going on?  So this is the first blog and it is going to be less than satisfactory in style, composure, and eloquency.  I promise to maybe shape it up over the next few weeks and months as the emergencies of the city subside and I can devote more time to writing.  As for now, I may resort to bullet points- actually, that is a fact; I am resorting to bullet points.  That last sentence is a complete abomination of all things that are good concerning punctuation and writing in the English language.  I apologize.  Who uses a hyphen and a semicolon in the same sentence?

• The current situation for the folks at the Lipscomb shelter stands as follows: 1) Red Cross is shutting down and pulling out at noon tomorrow (May 18) and there is no site secured for the homeless to move due to city ordinance codes, owner’s insurance woes, and the blatant disregard of city officials to do ANYTHING that would better our friends’ situations.  Jeannie, Doug, Lindsey, and I will be transporting our friends to Otter Creek to hang out for the day 12-6 and then collecting the camping supplies and moving out around 6.  Therefore, if we do not secure a site by 6pm tomorrow night we will be moving all the homeless who wish to go with us to Rolling Mills Hill parking lot (it’s right next to tent city).  Rolling Mills Hill is an apartment complex I believe that has next to no residents at the time.  We are going to pitch camp in the parking lot and see how it goes from there.  Most likely this will meet resistance from the city law enforcement and we will treat it as a peaceful demonstration to the way the situation has been handled.  I imagine if any of you have any interest in camping out with us you are more than welcome but know in advance that you may be visiting the jailhouse.
  (Not likely, but possible) Obviously, this is not public information yet so let’s keep it to ourselves.  This is just between Amos House (amoshouse.wordpress.com), Doug Sanders, and us.
• On another note, some of you have been to Casablanca on Murfreesboro rd. with me before.  Across the street there is a trailer park that has been completely demolished and is relatively unknown about.  I have yet to see it, I’m going to check it out tomorrow but evidently there were many families staying in this area and all the trailers have been destroyed.  Their material possessions are strewn out all over the river banks and much has floated away.  One of the inhabitants of the park that is still hanging around and guarding everyone’s stuff tells me that the families are in shelters right now but have no idea what they are going to do.  Also, they are working on cleaning the place up and it is a complete dump.  I think this would be a great opportunity for us on Saturday to truly serve a community that is receiving little to no attention and I am going to try and get them in touch with FEMA for compensation of their lost possessions.  Let me know how Saturday looks for everyone and I might start to coordinate that effort.  Wow, I used the words coordinate and effort, this must be official.

I love you all.  Let us be humble servants.  Consider others better than yourself as our Savior Christ Jesus did.  It is here our joy is found.