…with love from Audrey (Pastor Audrey Ward)
We’re walking through sorrows this week as we head toward Maundy Thursday—a celebration of the last supper Jesus had with his friends—and Good Friday, the day commemorated as the crucifixion.
For suppertime, Thursday, I’d like for us to think of families in Appalachia whose sustenance is meager at best: they do eat squirrel and rabbit, root vegetables from their gardens, and there’s corn bread, of course; leftovers, softened by soaking it in buttermilk for an evening meal. Poverty becomes a slow death of health, overall welfare, and education.
Until the Craddock Center arrived in Cherry Log, a tri-state corner of Georgia, and started a program for early childhood literacy, many children in the hills around there had never had a book of their own. The bookmobile made it up into to all kinds of out of reach places where no-income families live, getting their attention with story time and giving each child a book to keep. They provided sack lunches, too.
Of course Appalachia isn’t the only habitat for agonizing poverty, but it’s one I have observed and know well. Jesus, in saying ‘remember me’ intends for us to burn into our conscience the children around the world who hunger. Especially during this time when so many have lost jobs, instantly tossing them into economic disaster. All of these faces are the presence of Jesus. Now.
