Rescue Christmas series: Hot meal mends man’s broken spirit
Rescue Christmas is a story series featuring real-life examples of how your donations change lives in The Salvation Army Northern Division.
When you donate, you help Rescue Christmas for vulnerable people and families in Minnesota and North Dakota. Your generous financial support provides food, shelter, toys, coats, and other critical services for people impacted by the pandemic.
Your compassion helps people like the man in this story…
Hot meal mends man’s broken spirit
Last week we received a heartwarming letter from a National Guardsman who’d left his family in Louisiana to help with COVID-19 relief efforts in the Brainerd Lakes area of northern Minnesota.
The man wrote his letter on Thanksgiving Day. The letter began: “When I awoke this morning from a hotel in Little Falls, and my family is back home in Louisiana, it was a lonely feeling. A feeling of a poor broken spirit.”
The man explained that his spirits were lifted when a Salvation Army crew served his team a hot Thanksgiving lunch. During the meal, a Salvation Army crew member sat down and talked to him.
The crew member “asked where I was from and he took the time to visit with me ... and then most importantly, he asked if he could have prayer with me,” the man wrote. “It was a very humbling experience. These folks left their families, on this holiday, to make sure that people serving the community would have a little conversation, a nice meal, and a prayer to go forward with. I came to my hotel room this evening, hit my knees, and have never been so thankful for someone.”
The man went on to write that he previously did not know much about The Salvation Army, but that he is grateful for the organization and the people who support it.
“I’m grateful for what they did for us today,” the man wrote. “I’ve always figured I would never be so poor to need the help of The Salvation Army, but in reality, these folks lifted up a man who was poor in spirit.”
Enlist in Love’s Army by giving a donation or ringing bells at a red kettle. Your gifts of time and money will help Rescue Christmas for people and families struggling to get through the pandemic.