The Word Became Flesh

“The Word Became Flesh”

John 1:1-5, 10-14

The church I served in East Ridge was surrounded by abject poverty.

One of the things that was “brand-new” to me was the number of people living in extended-stay hotels.

I don’t just mean that they stay at these hotels for a week or two, I mean they live there for years, perhaps.

Families with one, two, three…maybe four or five children along with some extended family members could be packed into a smoke-filled, roach infested hotel room.

There was one particular hotel, called the Superior Creek Lodge, that housed approximately 1,700 people and within this number there were maybe 150 children.

There was a lot of crime at the Superior Creek Lodge—drug deals, prostitution, shootings, meth. labs—you name it.

On any given night, the police were there three or four times with their flashing blue lights.

The hallways of the hotel were filthy and smelled of urine and old cigarette smoke.

You could hear children crying and people screaming at one another as you passed the doors to the rooms.

We had an after-school feeding, tutoring and mentoring program for the children of Superior Creek Lodge at our church.

We would drive the church vans down the street to the hotel as soon as the bus arrived from the elementary school.

The kids would pile into our vans, unruly, cursing at one another, and showing little respect for the adult volunteers.

A couple of hours later, we would drop the kids back off at the hotel, and although the parents of the children were supposed to meet their kids at the van, there were rarely any parents waiting for them to return at the appointed time.

So, we had no choice but to let those children off in front of that scary hotel, leaving them to find their way to their rooms on their own.

We spent a lot of time at the hotel, taking food to folks and so forth.

It wasn’t unusual for me to pull up to the front of the hotel and see children milling about in the parking lot, by themselves in their pajamas or whatever.

Keep in mind that this place was right next to the interstate, at the East Ridge Exit off of I-75.

Sometimes, when kids would see me or other members of the church arrive they would just come and jump into our cars.

One cold winter day, we brought the children to the church and none of them were wearing jackets—some even had shorts on.

I quickly drove to Walmart and bought a winter coat for each one of those kids.

We had to cut the price tags off the jackets before giving them to the children in order to try and keep their parents from returning them to the store for cash.

It was a very sad situation.

And it was easy to become angry at the parents who neglected these poor, lost children.

On Tuesday evenings we had a feeding ministry.

A dozen or so of us would meet in the church gymnasium where we would make and pack meals to take to folks living in some of the other extended-stay hotels in the area.

Mary Ellen and I usually ended up going to one particular place which still exists.

We would knock on doors and offer folks bagged meals.

Pretty soon, they got used to us coming and looked forward to it.

One thing to note is that when you knock on hotel or motel room doors where people live, you see a lot…

…such as prostitutes all bunched up in a small room together or alone with some stranger…

…families with five or six young children…

…strange and horrible smells…

…sad people…

…lonely people…

…broken people…

…forgotten people…

…drug addicts and people who look much older than their actual years due to malnourishment, abuse, sickness and disease.

After the Superior Creek Lodge shut down, our church helped find permanent housing for approximately 70 of the families who were thrown out on the streets.

We were able to keep in-touch with some of them.

One family had a boy named Nate.

Mary Ellen and I would pick Nate up for Sunday school and church and someone else from the church would usually bring him home.

When Nate got in the car, it was almost suffocating.

He smelled so bad.

His mother was a chain-smoker who didn’t work, and living in the tiny little house together, Nate absorbed all the smoke and other smells from the place.

After Nate got out of the car, the smell would linger.

Other children would make fun of Nate for how he smelled.

Nate’s hair was greasy and rarely brushed.

He was a sad and lonely kid.

I remember him telling me that he was “the bottom of the barrel.”