These words are from Allison Brown, one of the many Mission Lazarus workers who carried medications from Honduras to Haiti and stayed to offer medical care and to work toward organizing health care in the aftermath of the earthquake. After describing the trauma and the strength she witnessed during her days there, she ends with this reflection, written Friday, January 29:

God is seeking those who are not yet His.  How does God seek people who are not yet His? – exclusively through the people who are already His, I believe.  We live in end times.  All I can say is, “God Come Quickly.”  (Psalm 70)  Shouldn’t we plead with God for His Second Coming?

How do you live your own life intentionally and conscientiously when you were given ease in the face of so much difficulty, wealth in the midst of poverty, opportunity in the midst of none?

Because you know, Go.

“Here am I.  Send me.”  (Isaiah 6:8)

When Haitians pray, “God, Come Quickly”, they mean you and me.

So be it.

WNYC’s Brian Lehrer did a follow-up segment today with Robert Hess, Commissioner of New York City’s Department of Homeless Services, on this year’s HOPE Count. It’s a good quick way to learn more about this event and how and why it happens, and also some advice about simple things you can do individually to help intervene for homeless people (like call 311 on a cold night if you see someone sleeping outside that you’re worried about).

Having missed it this year myself, I’m not sure how many CCfBers were able to join Casey this year in volunteering for the HOPE Count. But this opportunity, which has become a staple of our church’s calendar, is one of the simplest and most effective ways of helping address a problem that is local, complex, systemic…when “pure religion” is taking care of the widow, the orphan and the stranger, who among us is more a stranger than the one who lives permanently outside the web of physical and social safety that so many of us take for granted?