Sea of Joy

The economic problems in the US have hit the folks at Southwood very hard. Food donations are in greater demand than ever before; we rarely leave with leftovers these days, and people have been asking about where they can eat or get food during the week. We’ve been referring a lot of these people to the church for the Wednesday meal program as well as the larger food pantry there.

The usual residents have been joined by a few families who have been displaced from their homes by job loss and forclosure; either they could not pay the mortgage or rent, or were renting from or living with someone who couldn’t. One of these new families consists of Nadira, her husband, and their five children, of whom we’ve met Darya, who is eight; and Azan, who is two.

Things have been pretty bleak.

But not today. Azan bursts into the play area with a vigorous, joyful roar. "Raaaaaaaaaaaaaawr!” He rips into the toy bag with gusto, pulls out a ball, and begins tossing and chasing it all over the parking lot on stubby toddler legs. His older sister, Darya, follows, skipping. She heads straight for the jump rope and asks for rope turners. Angela and I are happy to turn the rope for her. “I want to try jumping in,” she says. We turn the rope as Darya tenses, watching the rope carefully. She’s never successfully jumped in before, but today she makes it, and everyone cheers.

Marisol arrives, crashing into Angela and jumping up on her to give her a giant bear hug. Marisol also has been struggling for months with learning to jump rope, but today she not only jumps in successfully, but makes it through most of a jump-rope chant before missing and having to turn the rope over to Shoshanna, who has also had some kind of rope jumping epiphany; she also jumps in and is able to jump through several rhymes before losing her turn. In the meantime, Azan has grabbed another single jump rope and it trails behind him as he jumps and screams joyfully, “Eighteen, nine, nine, NINE!”

Angela’s daughter, granddaughter, and grandson are helping today, and they make beaded bracelets with the kids when the enthusiasm for jumping rope dies down. A few of the middle-school-aged boys start up a board game, a group of smaller kids are playing with toy cars, and the play area is filled with happy chatter. People arrive to pick up food, and everyone is in a very good mood.

And then, something even more wonderful happens.

It turns out that the county food bank, which has been running very low on supplies and has been turning people away for months, has had a sudden uptick in donations. The motel handyman approaches us to announce that they have boxes of groceries for all the families with children. The joy increases as parents cross the parking lot from the office to their rooms, hauling boxes of food. For Southwood, the sun has broken through the clouds.