How Can It Be?

August 10, 2011

Sr. Wantabee was getting ready to give up her writing career but today calls her to pick up pen again. What’s wrong with this picture?
My church is hosting Camp Noah to help elementary children debrief from the tornado that struck our area several months ago. The normal inactivity of the week has been replaced with a flurry of volunteers, workers and perhaps 50 children. Sr. Wantabee arrives about 8:30 am to help with registration. To her surprise, as she rounds the corner, she sees a young adult man who looks somewhat like the youth worker, hunched down on the curb across the street with a young lady with her head between her hands. They are sitting on the curb of a block that used to be an elementary school but the school was closed and a police training center was established.
A bit confused, Sr. Wantabee and her husband parked the car and headed to the entrance to the church where Noah was standing in garb, welcoming children unloading from the van collecting them. The man on the curb rose and approached Sr. Wantabee. “I’m not a bad person and I’m not begging but my girlfriend hasn’t eaten for three days. Would you have a dollar for a MacDonalds meal?” Sr. Wantabee had a cell phone in her pocket and her glass case with her driver’s liscense in it. Her husband though, pulled out his pocket planner and pulled out their $5. He handed it to the young man. The guy was shocked. Sr. Wantabee warned her husband, you are suppose to give them food, not money. Her husband approached the young man and his friend and took them to MacDonalds.
Sr. Wantabee continued to the entrance of the church. The van driver asked if the couple was ok as he had noted them. The church secretary asked how the couple was as Sr. Wantabee passed into the church as she had been told to call 911 and report the couple. A lady at registration said she had found the couple sleeping under a blanket on the grass and told them they could not loiter.
A distressed young couple, sitting across from a busy church with lots of people who notice them. A young couple, sitting on the curb of a block with a police training school. The solution that comes to mind is to call 911. What’s wrong with this picture?