The monthly cycle

Now before you make any judgments about this title, let me explain.

Many of the people that we serve here at Andre House are on welfare or some other sort of government program that gets them money at the beginning of every month. We see this as a cycle. At the beginning of the month, there are less people that come for our services, especially dinner. In case you aren’t making the connection, we see less people because they have recently received their government checks and don’t have the need to come to us. In the same fashion, towards the end of the month, we get a lot more business as people start to run out of money. Our numbers for dinner regularly go over 600 and there are faces that you don’t see at any other part of the month. Now that I’m finishing my second month here, I’ve witnessed this monthly cycle twice.

The other day while driving home from something (what exactly I don’t remember), I had a bit of a revelation. Our Core Covenant states that we live life in ways that match that of our guests. This means eating the same meals we serve, dressing in simple clothing that is often taken from donations, and only receiving a small stipend every month (among other things). The revelation was that the way we spend our money is much the same as our guests. At the beginning of every month we are one hundred dollars richer- we go out to eat, have nice stuff at home, go to movies, etc. At the end of the month, like we find ourselves right now, we can’t find enough change to get a cup of coffee. This is just like our guests, only I suspect that we generally spend our money on different things.

So in an attempt to bring us closer to the lives of those we serve, we often come closer than we realize.