How does one become grateful after sleeping under a blanket of stars for a number of years? One member of the Catch will tell you. She is a benefactor of your gracious contributions to the Catch Ministry. She is filled with gratitude for the first front door key in a very long time to a safe place that offers a roof over her head.  While wanting to give back to you, she has come to understand she can multiply your gift by giving to those around her who need what she has. And what does she have?

Well, for one, she goes out among her friends who traverse the streets and teaches them from her daily Catch reading.  The community she is building trusts her because, up until recently, she was one of them.  And during our most recent annual campaign, she called for a match of her own. For every contribution to the Catch Ministry, she matched the members of the streets up to $5.00. And do you want to know what? She would not take no for an answer, reminding them, she tells us, of the gifts the daily read gives to them.

Marti and I recently surprised this woman with a Christmas tree and in return she wrote, “This special surprise is prompting me to gather my neighbors (within her motel complex of people who were also once without homes) to donate jackets and other things for the street people who gather to hear the daily Catch. Maybe make a big pot of soup for a lot of people.”

It is as if our Catch Member is a student of Henry J.M. Nouwen as she is living his wise words, “Those who need money and those who can give money meet on the common ground of God’s love.”

When those with money and those who need money share a purpose, we see a central sign of new life in the Spirit of Christ. We belong together in our work because Jesus has brought us together, and our fruitfulness depends on staying connected with him. Jesus tells us: “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). With him, we can do anything because we know that God surrounds us with an abundance of blessings. Therefore, those who need money and those who can give money meet on the common ground of God’s love. “And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8). When this happens, we can indeed say with Paul, “There is a new creation!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Where there is a new creation in Christ, there the Kingdom of God is made manifest to the world.

I know, and you do too, that it is in the connecting when giving that we engage, and not isolating ourselves with a handout by turning our heads away.  It is all about connecting — our Catch member will tell us — breathing the same air, walking the same streets and longing for the same things . . . peace, understanding, respect, and most of all love.

Let’s agree together to meet on the common ground of God’s love motivated by gratitude.