"There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the highest creed."

Tonight Ro, Suz and I had the fabulous opportunity to meet up with Denny and his family to a kitchen to serve dinner to the homeless. The three years we've done this, it has been a very special but different opportunity for me. The first year, I was conscience but more in tune with what had to be done in the kitchen and for setup. I love working with my family in order to feed the mouths of almost 100 people in an hour. We get the food dished up, serve it, make sure everyone has water and a napkin, then we clean the dishes. After dinner's served, we do the cleanup. Wash the tables off, fold them up, sweep, mop and cleanup in the kitchen.

It has always been such a humbling and rewarding thing to do. For some reason, this year hit me hard...real hard. To know of our economic woes in this country, I didn't know what to expect. I was working in the kitchen so I was behind the scenes. As I looked out at the people that were there for a warm meal, they were all kinds of people. You could tell a few patrons were homeless, but most of them were like me. They were fairly well dressed, clean and pretty well put together. One lady that works there told us that this year, the service to homeless people had dropped to only 30%. The other 70% were people who had homes but could not afford food. This is where it hits me. These are people, like me, who had a circumstance in their lives that dropped them down a little in the reign of class. A simple middle-class person who has gone to a lower-middle class person. This could happen to anyone. The loss of a job, sickness of yourself or family member or death of family member. It just reminded me that we're all the same, though our struggles may differ, we all have them. One young man arrived 20 minutes before the end of service. He had walked an hour to get there and feared he would be late and wouldn't have dinner this night. He arrived just in time and was able to eat, yet he had another walk back.

I am so happy that I have the oppurtunity to serve a hot meal to people who need it. I turn around and look at my life and how grateful I am to have a fridge full of food, a truck, a house and most of all my family. I am grateful Ro and I have our health, grateful I have a job and am able to provide for our family. I am grateful our dogs have a warm bed and plenty of food.

After serving, we went to Denny & CeCe's new house to have dinner. They have a beautiful new home. And the spirit of family is so strong. They are neat people and I'm so glad they're my family. Both Rhonda and I have the utmost respect for Denny & CeCe, they set such a good example for their boys and for us. They love us for who we are even they don't agree. I have never felt judgement from either one of them. I treasure the love I have for them. They are the first that gave Ro and I a "couple" present. It meant so much to both of us. We thank them for their love and acceptance. We love their family bunches and bunches!!

I have so many things in life to be grateful for. Sometimes I lose touch of that ultimate appreciate but I thrive for opportunities like this to remind and humble me.

This holiday season, the only thing I ask for is everyone to have a warm place to sleep and a hot meal.