When you see extreme poverty up close, it changes you. You either recoil and try to put it out of your mind, or you resolve to help.
I'll never forget one time my dad taking me inside the hovel where our maid lived when I was a small child. We drove her home every day. She lived in a shack with a dirt floor. I was stunned into silence and clung to Daddy's leg. I was no more than about 3 or 4 but that image has stayed with me.
I will never forget reading depositions when I was a very young paralegal, in Knoxville, and being in total shock. The firm where I worked represented coal companies in lawsuits for black lung. The miners usually lived back in the mountains, in remote areas, and had many children, no education, and often no electricity or running water. They lived without hope, without enough food, or warm clothes in winter, often illiterate, and they were less than 2 hours' drive from Knoxville.
When I saw the tiny shacks in Russia in 2003, with dirt floors and outhouses in the back, I remember thinking to myself, these remind me of the places I used to read about, tiny places where poverty is an everyday ugliness. It doesn't matter the language or the customs. Poverty is universal.
I had no idea I would spend a significant amount of money and time giving two children a decent life, away from that misery. I think of my son, homeless until age 8, and of my daughter, living in just such a shack until age 6, and I want to help other kids like them. I just can't adopt them all.
I went to high school with a pretty girl named Julie Burnette. She was a majorette. She was very pretty and very sweet. We didn't "hang out" but we were aware of each other. I was socially awkward and sort of a geeky kid, so we ran in different circles, but my impression was always that she was a good person. She wasn't snobby, like some of the really pretty girls at my school.
I had no idea until we connected on Facebook that Julie has lived an amazing life in the last thirty years.
While I was living the yuppy life, drinking lattes and going to the gym and writing screenplays in the early to mid 90's, Julie Holland (her married name) was reaching out to people in real poverty in Eastern Kentucky.
Borrowing from Amazon, this is the product description for a new book about Julie, There is No Hope Here.
"When, in 1994, Julie Holland heard God’s whispers, she turned to her step-father for help. John Boggs was a wealthy businessman who had escaped the poverty of Appalachia eastern Kentucky by attending a settlement school where he received comfort and an education. Growing up in poverty, he understood how a lack of hope sapped your soul. “Listen to your heart,” he told her. “Your heart will guide you.” She did and her heart led her to travel from Knoxville, Tennessee to minister to the families in those rugged mountains. THERE IS NO HOPE HERE is a true story, marked by humor and sadness, as a glimpse is offered into the eyes and souls of Appalachian poverty. It’s the story of how her love inspired others to follow and led to the start of the Mission of Hope, one of the most respected Christian charitable organizations in the southeast. It’s the story of Julie’s walk with God as He upholds her through the darkness of discouragement and a life-threatening illness. It’s an inspirational story set in one of the most challenging and beautiful places in America."
I am reading the book very quickly and yet slowly. It's so powerful that I often find tears in my eyes and I have to put it down.
Not only did Julie start her own charity, she did it while suffering from Lupus.
I am giving away 2 copies of the book. Leave me a comment or shoot me a Facebook message or email and I will enter your name in a drawing. I will draw the names of the winners December 21 [Wed.].
Thanks to Julie and others Mission of Hope is a thriving organization that helps people who really need it, right here in America. If you have any extra funds and want to donate to a very worthwhile cause, please donate to Mission of Hope.
