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The Salvation Army USA Southern Territory
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December 16, 2008
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Wisdom is a precious thing because it is rare. Have you noticed that during the high celebration seasons of the year it becomes even more rare? It all depends on how you celebrate events like birthdays, wedding anniversaries, retirements, sporting occasions or the great annual religious festivals.
Christmas is perhaps the most famous such festival. How strange it is that so many folk mark it in a way that is totally empty of Christ, the one whose birth is being remembered. Wise, truly joyful celebration does not go hand in hand with shallowness or with rowdy inebriation. |
Wise men and women prepare with carefulness for Christmas. The Advent ("The Coming") Season, covering four weeks leading up to Christmas,
provides this opportunity. Week by week, in our reading of Scripture or in our worship, we can go gradually deeper and deeper into the wonder of God’s plan to give us a Savior, so that when Christmas Day arrives we again have a firm grasp of the miraculous depth of it all. A Savior for my soul! A Savior for my sinful self! A Savior to befriend and guide me all my life long! Now that is cause for celebration!
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Dallas host Kettle Kickoff
Brown Artifacts donated
Atlanta Temple
Celebrates
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Salvation Army officials are trying to make Christmas bright for all in need, despite a sharp increase in applications for assistance and the threat of decreased holiday giving.
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By Major Frank Duracher
Southern Spirit staff
Facing the worst economic crisis to grip the nation in decades, Salvation Army units
across the Southern Territory are looking for ways to cut costs and raise additional revenues without sacrificing sorely needed services.
"The most common response received from throughout the territory
is that we are now
assisting individuals and families who have never had to request services from The Salvation Army or any other social services organization before," said Kevin Tomson-Hooper, territorial director for social services. |
In addition to "traditional" clients seen on a regular basis, Tomson-Hooper said that an inundation for assistance is coming most often from employed individuals in vocations hardest hit by the economic downturn: younger, retail workers, workers in the hospitality industry, mortgage, homebuilding, real estate or families with children or working single parents. "Some locations are seeing as much as a 90% increase in first-time clients," Tomson-Hooper said. "Many have been impacted by the collapse of the secondary home mortgage industry situation, high fuel expenses for both home and autos and an increase in food costs.
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