Three Wise Men: The Untold Story

Wise women also came. The fire burned in their wombs long before they saw the flaming star in the sky. They walked in the shadows, trusting the path would open under the light of the moon.
Wise women also came, seeking no directions, no permission from any king. They came by their own authority, their own desire, their own longing. They came in quiet, spreading no rumors, sparking no fears to lead to innocents' slaughter, to their sister Rachel's inconsolable lamentation.
Wise women also came, and they brought useful gifts: water for labor's washing, fire for warm illumination, a blanket for swaddling.
Wise womoen also came, at least three of them, holding Mary in the labor, crying out with her in the birth pangs, breathing ancient blessings into her ear.
Wise women also came, and the went, as wise women always do, home a different way.

A prayer:
In this and every season may we see them, the wise ones who come bearing your gifts to us. They cloak themselves in garb that rarely draws attention, but they are there at the edge of the shadows, in the margins of our days, on the threshold of our awareness, offering what we most need. Give us eyes to see them now, before they have left to go home some other way, before we glimpse their departing shadows edged in gold and smell their spiced perfume lingering behind them in the air. Amen.

-Jan Richardson, Night Visions

Thanks to Lauren for including this in our YAP news!

Donate With Someone Else's Money

Warren Village has partnered with 99.5 The Mountain radio station this holiday season. The Mountain is giving away $100,000 to over 20 Denver non-profits and we are one of them.

99.5 The Mountain is donating $10 for each new person to sign up for their database, The Mountain Community, before the December 22 deadline. If we can get 400 volunteers to respond, we will have $4000 come our way. The more we get to the respond, the more money we will receive.

To support our cause; please click on the following link:
http://www.dat-e-baseonline.com/front/deb.asp?Action=reg&zx=70, and join the Mountain Community. Fill out the form completely and then choose Warren Village to receive the $10 contribution. It’s easy to do and free for you. Please forward this to as many friends as you can think of; this is something that everyone should know about.

Getting in the Holiday Spirit

It's almost time for Warren Village's annual Holiday Shops, and the stress level is sharply rising around the office. The Holiday Shops are where we set up a gazillion donations in "stores" throughout our buildings, so that our residents and alums can pick out presents for their kids and the kids can shop for their parents. It takes place over two days, with several hundred people coming through to either shop or volunteer. So basically, it's going to be mad chaos, but I love some of the comments we've received from families about the experience in past years. Here are my favorites:

“The year before my first Holiday Shop, I spent ten dollars total on my three, young children. We still had a happy Christmas, but the next year [because of the Holiday Shop], it was like Santa Claus really existed, like magic. I live modestly all year and then get to have a beautiful star bounty at the end. It is hard to put into words.” Warren Village Alumna

“My brother and I got lots of presents last year. And I ‘bought’ my mom a mixer. My mom loves [the Holidays] because you get to share lots of love and lots of food.” Warren Village child, age 6

“Being a single mother, struggling with all of these issues that go along with this journey, I was not able to provide even a meager amount of holiday gifts for my son. But thanks to the kindness of strangers, my son has had extremely joyous holiday seasons in the last few years.”
Warren Village Alumna

“The Holiday Shop is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen. Last year, I got my mom a dish set and a makeover she can do by herself. She was very surprised—like she got her dream come true.” Warren Village child, age 8

"Thank you very much for having me and my son for 1 and a half years and for your kind help. We will always remember your gifts for Christmas. It is very dear for us, immigrants who don't have anybody here."
Warren Village Alumna

World AIDS Day

This is one of the women I met in South Africa. She's only 20 and she's dying from AIDS. She has two children, ages 4 and 2, that are also infected with HIV. I remember thinking that she was very beautiful, like a model in a magazine. I asked to take her picture--a small gesture to commemorate her life. When this picture was taken, she was so weak that she could not rise from her chair.

She is just one of the many faces that we should remember today. There's a saying in Africa that "statistics are numbers without tears," but sometimes the numbers still speak volumes.

40 million people have HIV/AIDS worldwide.
23 million have already succumbed to the disease.

This is almost infathomable to me. Imagine all the military casualities of every American war. You'd still be 21 million short of the AIDS death toll right now. And the problem with AIDS statistics, is that they are rising every minute. In fact, every 15 seconds, another child is orphaned because of the epidemic.

We should not be silent. We should not forget. God calls us to love and not to judge, to care for the sick and the dying, the widow and the orphan.

Dr. Musa W. Dube offers this paraphrase of Matthew 25: “I was sick with AIDS and you did not visit me. You did not wash my wounds, nor did you give me medicine. . . . I was stigmatized, isolated, and rejected because of HIV/AIDS and you did not welcome me. . . . I was a dispossessed widow and an orphan and you did not meet my needs . . . . The Lord will say to us, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did not do it to me.'"