Small Town Family Help

Did you know that there are over 2000 people living in tiny Delaware who are without adequate housing? And many of these are motivated, hard-working folk who simply need a break.

What can you do?

If you are reading this, I hope, when you are finished, that you will make a small donation to Family Help, Inc. (FHI). Perhaps you will consider giving a gift of money in another person's name—a superb way to give a gift that won't collect dust, but will put food on a table and provide shelter for a single mom with one or two children.


FHI is in its third year of service to the homeless of Middletown, Delaware. Many generous people contributed money to the project last year, and several school athletic programs raised money for Christmas presents this year.

The generosity of those of us who have more of life's advantages is supporting four families with children, who live in transitional housing units on West Lake Street in Middletown, Delaware. Each family receives food and clothing as well as counseling that will, with God’s help, lead each family to more a stable and independent future. Several families have already improved their credit rating, secured jobs, and have moved into their own apartments. New tenants have moved in and are beginning to turn their lives around.

The generosity of many individuals and groups has allowed FHI to meet an important need in our community, but, in order for us to continue this noble work, I am asking you consider making a tax-deductible donation to help FHI continue its mission. Your donation will be used to maintain four apartments, provide basic needs for four families, and continue programs to help them create a better financial foundation for themselves and their families.

In these challenging economic times, FHI needs your support. Together, we can make a difference in the lives of homeless families in Middletown.

Checks should be sent to Family Help Inc, P.O. Box 302, Middletown, DE 19709.

If you would like to get involved in other ways, tour the property, or ask questions about the program, please contact Board President Harvey Zendt at 302-528-5685.

Finally, please pass this plea on to others who are in a position to support FHI's effort to help those in need. Thank you for your support and prayers.

The Dark World We Live In

Many, many years ago, Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan River. The story tells us that he simply joined a number of others who were also baptized that day.

Imagine the world as Jesus knew it. Stories from Isaiah speak of overwhelming rivers, consuming fires, and God’s children being ransomed. It was a pretty dark and dangerous world.

Psalm 29 speaks of a God who thunders, is all powerful, breaks cedars, and flashes forth flames of fire—a world that is dark and dangerous.

Luke describes Jesus as a Messiah who came with a winnowing fork to gather the righteous and to separate them from the unrighteous. Apparently some Jews were cooperating with the occupying Romans, seemingly denying their faith and traditions, while others fought through terrorist acts of violence hoping for a Messiah of power to appear, while still others may have prayed for guidance but were confused about this Jesus Messiah, who seemed humble and nonviolent.

The human condition is dark and dangerous. The first verse of the first book of the Bible, Genesis 1, verse 1, states: “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.”

Yet into this dark and complex reality we take great pains to convince ourselves that it is otherwise, that we can avoid the dark truth of our existence.

Yes, my friends, you and I are members of a master race of disillusioned human beings.

A man I know told me that one day his seven-year-old son started pulling out his eye lashes. The man and his wife were having marital problems, and in his seven-year-old mind, the boy thought that inflicting pain on himself would send a message to his mom and dad that they did not need to fight with each other, that his personal suffering would somehow save the troubled marriage.

This is what I call a self-evident truth—truth that the world is both dark and dangerous. When a child is willing to accept suffering to ransom the shortcomings of his parents, the world for that child is dark indeed.

Theologians, like Paul Tillich, Christopher Lasch and Ernest Becker who have thought deeply about culture and civilization in modern day North America have determined that we are disillusioned about the reality of our dark and dangerous world. Since the coming of the Mayflower, we have exchanged the idea of God’s thundering wrath and Jesus’ winnowing fork for the idea that we are a beacon of hope, a place of prosperity to be envied by all who look upon democracy, freedom, and capitalism, and deem it right and good. We have replaced the reality of suffering with cynicism, false hope, and repression.

But you and I know better: the truth is the truth; and self-evident truth is just that—truth that cannot be denied by rational thought.

Scientists know that the sun around which this humble planet, our island home, revolves is cooling, ever so slowly, but it is cooling never the less; and this means that this earth, and life as we know it, will one day end.

I submit to us all that this is worse than dark and dangerous. This is abject terror, and end that we all know is coming one day.

Is it better to deny this reality? to imagine it is not so? To ignore it?

The fact is that Americans like you and me would rather live disillusioned, believing, falsely, that that money, fame, power, and self-righteousness will somehow save us from the dark and dangerous reality that is this world.

We need the light of truth to expose what is false and to guide us toward the truth.

One of the books I read over the Christmas break was The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, a lawyer turned writer, former editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal, she won the coveted Edgar M. Cullen Prize at Yale; she clerked on the U.S. Supreme Court for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Ms. Rubin observed that Americans are preoccupied with buying things. Buying stuff can stimulate goodness, like the time she bought a book of puzzles for her daughter that was so exciting that the child developed a passion for problem-solving. Ms. Rubin was tempted to buy similar books, but realized that more of a good thing is not necessarily better. Her child would become bored with more of the same thing.

She determined that buying more things does not make us more happy. The Happiness Project was full of other ideas to make one happy: more sleep, more exercise, singing, more organization—like cleaning out a closet— running, playing an instrument, traveling, starting a book club—all healthy distractions that remind us how happy we can be if we try hard enough.

According to Aristotle, “Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life.” Later, Epicurus wrote, “If we have happiness, we have everything, and if it is absent, then all our actions are directed toward attaining it.”

Happiness, it could be said, is our light in a dark world. God put us in charge of finding that light and to be that light. But just read the headlines in any recent news sources to see that we have not done a very good job of being that light.

I believe this is why Jesus chose to lead the way he did, and why he said that he would some day come again.

Terrorism, conflict and chaos are all around us—in Tunisia, Russia, the Middle East, India.

Think about the tens of thousands of Indians who reacted to the December 19, 2012 rape and murder of a female university student that drove conscientious Indians to challenge their government through protests. A similar incident occurred again just this weekend. Remember the Tunisian man who ignited the pro-democracy Arab Spring by setting himself on fire on December 17, 2010, after being humiliated by a dictator’s police. Just this weekend, another Tibetan man set himself on fire in protest of Chinese rule over his region.

Such protests are uniting moments in which each person’s conscience is moved to reassert a moral good in the face of a dark and terrible event. The triumph lies in victory of that common good.

One of my most lasting memories of grade school was when my history teacher told my class that Americans have a passion and drive to seek justice, to put right in front of might, and to root for the underdog in a contest. I have never forgotten that lesson. It planted the idea that Americans unite around ideas and passions, and we will not be controlled by rules and laws if the rules are wrong and the police are corrupt.

If we read the New Testament, we find there that people wondered whether John was the Messiah, the one who would come to bring the good they hoped for. But John said that he was not, so the people wondered who would it be? What would the Messiah be like? Would the Messiah be all that people want and hope for?

And we are no different, though we live in a modern age. We are disillusioned into thinking that we can control our destiny and that God must fit into our expectations. In this we continue to be disappointed.

God did not provide me with a new iPod for Christmas. Well I guess God is not a Santa Claus. God has not balanced the national budget. Well perhaps God is not an economist. God has not wiped out the bad guys in Somalia. Well, I guess that God is not a policeman. And God did not fix a little boy’s family. God is not a magical marriage counselor.

Who is the Messiah, and when will he/she come to us again? Jesus came to the Jordan one day, and walked into the water with everyone else.  He chose to live humbly and with kindness and courage. That is a lesson for all of us. Be authentic. Be our best selves. Accept the reality that we live in a dark and dangerous world, but, above all, be brave and rely on the power of community sensibility to know what is good and right, and to make our decisions based on self-evident truth and goodness.