Eat Sleep Breathe

It's Christmas and that means a variety of things for rescue missions.

1. It's very cold outside. The homeless are no longer homeless in Regina. They are now "near homeless" as they crash on people's couches, our Shelter, or bed down on a program for the winter. It means we can't flippantly turn someone away without making sure they indeed DO have a place to stay for the night. It's also cold and flu season and these bugs spread rampantly as residents and staff take their turns being "down for the count." Some just ignore their illness and drag themselves to work to do their best, as they know we're so short-staffed.

2. Many from the community are in the Christmas spirit. These normally shy people come out of the woodwork and want to help. Or they want to teach their children the spirit of giving. However, there are strings attached! It has to either be ON Christmas day, or, it has to be serving during the Christmas meal. None of this "clean up crew" business. We have one church that comes each year and sacrifically does the background work of cleaning up. Aside from them, it's a rare occurance. Before they came, the staff were the clean up crew. This made for extremely long days after organizing and serving 600+ people. We have special families and staff that help on Christmas day. These people are not strangers to our residents, and these relationships are what make the day a brand new start of GOOD Christmas memories. I am grateful for Larry, George, and the Cochrane's who are choosing to celebrate THEIR Christmas with our LifeChange and Shelter residents.

3. Our office staff are VERY busy! We are processing several thousand dollars per day and people are on vacation and we are having to receive many many donations at the door, whether it be from our Operation Christmas Stocking program, turkeys for Christmas, knitted winter gear, Christmas quilts, kids toys, etc. And the phone is ringing off the hook! All fantastic things, but they make for the busiest time of the year here. Both Vicki and I came in Sunday night to catch up on our office work!

Anyway, that's par for the course for us in December. Eat, sleep and breathe the Regine RESCUE Mission. Even more than usual!!