Hug an Angel

We’re going to blink and be right in the middle of reaching out for the 7th year to angels with HIV/AIDS. Every Christmas we deliver very generous gifts from the Christmas wish lists of children of/with AIDS, meaning that if they don’t have AIDS, either a mom and/or a sibling have it.

If you are one of the lucky people not born with this horrible disease, then you can say a prayer of thanks to God and, if you can, give to the Secret Angels Project. We take any and all sizes and denominations of filthy lucre and have never seen a dollar amount too big or too small.

In the past couple of weeks we’ve reached out to two AIDS patients who have suffered terrible depression. Their precious lives at this writing hang in the balance. These are really young people who feel culturally cornered by this monstrous disease. Cornered people can have desperate thoughts so please pray for these angels who suffer in secrecy.

In the past year since our last Christmas outreach, we’ve given tens of thousands of dollars in:
• utility bills and rent
• pantry items
• clothing
• back-to-school clothes
• Christmas toys and other gifts

We’ve done this while maintaining a low overhead (I’m free) and an always diminishing bank account that miraculously fills back up through the giving of readers, other authors, church folks, not so churchy folks, and other people of compassionate hearts and spirits. This season, we are in desperate need of funds for their health crises as well as our media department. Our website has got to be updated and it isn’t free. If you would like to designate your giving, we honor that as requested.

Next week, we’re going to deliver Thanksgiving dinners to all of the families on our list. Then December 8, we’ll deliver Christmas gifts to 100 children, 72 with AIDS, and the remainder “of” AIDS. This is a lot of manpower to manage in the midst of editing a book and starting a new one. I can’t do it alone, that’s for sure!

If you can give to the Secret Angels Project, you may mail it to us at:
Secret Angels Project
16136 Grafham Circle
Huntersville, NC 28078

If you notice, I don’t offer specific stories of the parents and children who are the recipients of our giving. That’s why we call the charity “secret” angels. Although we realize that you might be moved to give if we rip your heart out with one of their stories (like it rips our hearts out to hear them), our mission and the nature of this compassionate fund allows explanations only in broad and general terms. So thank you for giving in secret and trusting us to be really good stewards on behalf of angels you may never meet this side of heaven.

Turn Up the Volume

On some days, I get a call or an email that someone’s lights are shut off or a landlord has posted an eviction. First I pray, because the funds are always tight, then I tell the group members engaged in this battle with me; we pray and then venture out, like God smugglers making an HIV patient’s load a little lighter.

Here’s how it went one day. I had a certain amount of funds in the Secret Angels account. It was going to take most of it to help keep a mom’s electricity on. She came home from a battered women’s shelter to find the lights off and that the bill had not been paid for quite some time.

I remembered our early days as a couple. We were no where near ready for marriage. We spent most of the time money juggling and working to keep body and soul together. So when I heard this woman’s story, I empathized. What I’ve learned about intentional faith is that there are stages of response. People who hear this woman’s story will often sympathize. Those suffering similar domestic predicaments will empathize. But engaging faith intentionally is when we enter the realm of “becoming Jesus”, a phrase that has become a popular platitude among our rank-and-file.

Becoming Jesus is hearing and then doing. God hears the voices all day long—“Please, do you hear me?” “Can you send me some relief?” “Am I trapped forever in this life?” When we tune our ear to our community and ask God to turn up His volume so we can hear what he hears, then we can become doers, smuggling God’s love into our community in a manner that surpasses politics and programs.

http://www.secretangelsproject.com