New Hope for Homeless LGBT Youth - Gay City News, NY:
Santa Claus came early to the homeless LGBT youth of New York City in more ways than one. On Christmas Eve, the Metropolitan Community Church of New York will celebrate an unexpected gift of $100,000 from an anonymous member to launch one of the first new 24-hour crisis shelters for homeless youth since the establishment of Covenant House, an institution not known to be gay-friendly, in 1972.“We want to express our gratitude to people like our donor who are really stepping up to the plate,” said Reverend Pat Bumgardner, senior pastor of MCC/NY. “This is the heart of the gospel—caring for people in need. These kids are the future of our community and if we’re not helping them, who will?”
"A Christmas Message," from Rev. Tim Simpson, Christian Alliance for Progress:
Despite all of our shortcomings and all our attempts to destroy God's image in our neighbor, Christmas is the reminder that God still is hopeful for us and our futures, and that we have not been abandoned, but that God will be with us until all that is wrong with the world will be made right ...Whenever one gives to a person in need, whenever one repays evil with kindness, whenever one stands firm in hopeful expectation where seemingly only despair could survive, one incarnates the spirit of that first Christmas so long ago in Bethlehem.
Rev. Dr. Penny Nixon, MCC San Francisco:
It’s not as important whether we believe the story as whether we relive the story. So each Christmas, we get to find new ways to say God is among us ...The story this year goes something like this: In the year that George W. Bush was president the government kept talking about constitutional amendments, and same-sex couples tried to register to be married and Congress approved millions of dollars for war. In those days there were in the town of San Francisco thousands of families who found no room at any house; but an angel appeared to gay and lesbian and bisexual and transgender and some very queer straight people who followed their own star. They had their own wise ones. They had their own fruitcake. (And they were proud of it.) And in those days they tried to make the world a better place, just a small step at a time. They believed that no matter what the government said, no matter what the states said, no matter what the religious right and the far right and even some of the moderates said, they believed that God had noticed them. So they brought gifts to those without homes; and to those forgotten they served a hot meal and gave a warm smile and a coat and a hat to those out in the cold. In the dark of night, they brought the light of love.
They would not be the type that the government or religious people were looking for but apparently they were the ones God was looking for.
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