This is my Neighbor // homeless

 "A long time ago, when Chelsea was tinier than she is now, 

there was a big storm in the middle of the night. There was thunder, and lightning, and wind, and rain. Daddy heard little footsteps and looked up. There was Chelsea. 'Chelsea,' he said, 'Are you a little bit scared?' 'Uh-huh,' she said. So he picked her up and brought her to the window. They looked out at the thunder, and the lightning, and the wind, and the rain. 'Are you still scared?' 'Uh-huh.' So he tucked her safely under the covers in Mommy and Daddy's bed and she fell asleep." 

So goes the classic story in our household. I've loved thunderstorms as long as I can remember, but in spite of my sturdy house, strong roof, warm bed and tightly-shut windows, they can still be unnerving.

This weekend my mom, little sister and I met up with some friends at their work-in-progress farmhouse. During our visit, Gabi and I stayed in the summer kitchen, as there is only one bedroom in the actual house that isn't completely gutted. Each night there were terrible thunderstorms and flood warnings. After our experience this spring out our own farm, having the oldest tree on the land come down in a storm, I've been more on-edge about fierce storms. The clouds rolled in, the power went out, and I lay tense and alert. Lying there, under a thin roof, between uninsulated walls, old and shaky windows, and one blanket shared with my little sister, I listened to the storm. If a tree had come down on the summer kitchen, or the winds had blown in any of the windows or doors, or had a tornado come along, we would have been in real trouble. Still, we were reasonably safe and made it through each night, even sleeping soundly through much of the storm.

This year, as I have listened to storms wrap around and bang against the place I'm sleeping, my thoughts have turned toward the countless people who have to weather the same, often worse, storms that I weather, but without a roof. The summer kitchen was as close as I ever want to come to "roughing it" during a storm, but the people living in tents in Haiti, under tarps in the slums of India, in huts in Africa, or in alley-ways in America... do we ever think of what it must be like for them to endure such storms in their dwellings, or lack thereof? I think of how frightened I can be, when I'm not getting wet or having my shelter blow violently about me all night. I want to love those neighbors of mine. You can join me!

From now until the end of August, for every item sold through my online store, 50% of profits will be given to either http://www.helpusa.org/ OR World Vision's emergency relief fund. 
You choose which ministry you want me to put the 50% towards by specifying in the notes during check-out! Easy as that, we can help get our dear neighbors into real shelter so they can stop weathering storms alone and afraid.