JUNE 2, 2007
Dear Friends,
In his latest book, "Poor People," author William T. Vollmann investigates global poverty through interviews with people who live it, suffer it, and survive day by day in the clutches of its power.
"For me," the author writes, "poverty is not mere deprivation; for people may possess fewer things than I and be richer; poverty is 'wretchedness.' It must then be an experience more than an economic state."
I am captured by that last phrase – more an experience than a state of being. REACH works daily with families well aware of the 'state' of being saddled with terminal illness, with enormous and unsolvable financially draining realities, with the sorrows and fears of the unknown. They "know" this state well. Their experience, however, is something we of REACH have come to recognize as the critical place.
Our families suffer the loss of ease, of well-being, of joyfully careless connection with community services – schools, churches, children's organizations, even neighborliness and idle chatter. Most of our families are in a state of stress. All of our families "experience" an impoverishment of what we call "normal life."
During a recent Kaiser Foundation Webcast, experts disclosed that HIV/AIDS is not on the decline here in the US; conservatively there are 300,000 folks that do not know that they are infected with the virus and that there are 40,000 new cases of HIV every year.
Standing by our families, viewing the immediate future, we then insulate ourselves in trust and we risk standing in the experience of our REACH families. The world is far too fearsome a place not to recognize the difference between the state of things and the experience of things. We are looking for and implementing solutions, ways to help carry the burden, renewed love and transferable hope.
We are asking you to be a continued presence in our community to recognize and give graciously to REACH. Please support one of our children throughout the year with a gracious monthly gift. We can’t do it without you and I assure you it’s a worthy investment.
Pax,
Susan K. Slonaker