My Friend Ken

Each early November Cherry Street Mission Ministries participates, rather heavily, in Tent City. In November I blogged about 'An Evening with the Cougar' where I write about John 'Cougar' Mellencamp taking a moment from a busy schedule to visit with our homeless and impoverished fellow citizens.

Tent City is a Homeless Awareness Project where we ask our community ... the whole community to slow down for a moment and think about, and to experience, what CAN be done about homelessness and poverty causing homelessness.

Well ... that's Ken. Ken Leslie started Tent City several years ago, and only in the last two years has the project come back from a short hiatus. For the last several years, Ken has been actively engaged in a newly forming group called the Toledo Lucas County Homeless Board, or TLC for short. Since it's inception, going on five years now, the group has met to form a process to address homelessness. Now, it -like so many groups seems enamored with the mundane slowness of talking. This talking has led to more talking which has led to planning, and now there is talking about the planning.

Finally, Ken had enough and resigned from the Board last month. As a matter of fact if you go to You Tube and search for 'TLC' you'll see a five minute video of Ken talking about his experience. I like Ken, he's got a lot of passion for people and in his heart he wants nothing more than frankly .... the same thing I want; to end homelessness - period. You can also go to www.1matters.org to catch up on some recent events.

Tonight however, we will hold a rally at 7:00 in front of One Government Center to memorialize the men and women who have died this year - homeless. While these annual memorial events sadden me to the core, my hope is in Christ and with His hope we will continue to work and serve together for a better day for ALL people.

Merry Christmas everyone,

Dan