The BIG work of building God’s world depends on us! I don’t know about you, but sometimes I just don’t feel like I’m up for the job. It seems so daunting. Certainly, God can do better than work through the likes of me!
I have been inspired by many people along the way who have truly been God’s servants, who have given so much to the building of God’s world. One person who continues to inspire me is a woman named Lana. She started a non-profit in the late ‘90’s called People in Crisis. Lana is disabled due to a work accident years ago. Her life was saved at that time because a friend of hers gave everything he had to help make her well in the aftermath of her work accident. He not only stayed by her side, but drained his bank account to get her the medical intervention necessary to restore her to health. She remained deeply indebted to him.
Well, her friend has since become chronically ill. He suffers from a variety of diseases and syndromes, requires very specialized treatment for which he has no resources and without any decent health insurance is not able to get the level of intervention required. His life is further complicated by the abuse he endured in his childhood and the associated trauma. So, Lana started People In Crisis as a way to help her friend, to pay him back for saving her life. Since 1999, Lana, lacking a board of directors to work for her organization, has been going door to door in various parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania collecting money so she can, in her words, “sustain her friend.” Her work is tireless. She does everything legally, acquiring the local permits necessary to go door to door. She perseveres in the face of outright rejection, she solicits funds day in and day out, she tells her story over and over, and she has collected thousands of dollars over the years to help “save her friend who once saved her.” In the course of her work, she has encountered so many people who “fall through the cracks” of the health insurance system, who can’t afford their prescribed medications, and who have specialized needs. Lana, herself, has become a great resource to the people she has met door to door as she has become quite knowledgeable of the healthcare delivery system and the pharmaceutical industry and has assisted countless people with referrals and advocacy services she provides. Her list of people who need her help has grown. She is startled by the complexity of the problems she encounters. Her dream would be to grow People In Crisis into a big organization to raise big money to assist all these people she has met along the way. In the meantime, she continues to walk door to door, every day, to save her friend and help whomever she can.
Lana reminds me every day about what selfless love looks like. Her walking the streets, being a beggar really, stretches the boundaries of my love. She is imago dei, an image of God, a God-carrier for me. Her life, her rejection, and her battle to secure proper care for her friend, are a clarion call to address the injustices that exist in our society. Her passion challenges me to be passionate in the root sense of that word – to suffer with – a brother or sister in need.
The BIG work of building God’s world depends on us! I don’t know about you, but sometimes I just don’t feel like I’m up for the job. Thank God for Lana and people like her whose example is a reminder that “God only has us.” We are partners with God called to “work for a new kind of society where people count; where people matter more than things, more than possessions; where human life is not just respected but positively revered…” May we learn to see with the eyes of our hearts the wonderful work of God among us.
Happy Easter!
John W. Sosnowski+
Canon to the Ordinary
Diocese of New Jersey
jsosnowski@newjersey.anglican.org
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