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Maysville Churches to Hold Homeless Awareness Event

Spiritual Networks

Gordy Jones is well read, well educated, professionally successful in a highly technical field, and one of the most uncomplicated, humble men you will ever meet.

But this isn’t about Gordy, he is adamant about that. This is about raising awareness about the homeless problem in Maysville (yes, it does exist). And he’s right, of course, there is something unseemly about doing good and then patting your own back about what a wonderful person you are.

However, to get it and understand why you should support the Homeless Awareness Walk, his and several other area churches are hosting on Saturday, Nov. 1 from 2-6 p.m., you need to know Gordy.

He and bother Bill were raised by single mother Evelyn Faris Jones, later Earhart in an apartment over Gantley’s on Second Street. They were poor. “Really poor,” according to Jones.

Single mothers were not thought of well during that time in American history and that may be why his mother was so compelled to stress to her children they were no better or worse than anyone.

“One of the things my mom said to me was ‘Let me tell you something son, don't you think that anybody else is better than you and don’t ever think you’re better than them.’”

She meant for him to remember it. While she was in Hospice dying, her husband and loving caregiver Paul Edward Earhart (yes he’s related to Amelia) died of a sudden heart attack at 55. Now it would be up to Gordy, Bill and younger brother Paul Kelly Earhart to take care of her.

“Even in her current situation she would say to me ‘Every day in the world there’s always somebody worse off than I am.’”

Her lessons stuck and were reinforced on a mission trip to Anhuac, Mexico during Gordy’s young adulthood. He was gobsmacked by what he saw and he learned there is poverty and there is abject poverty.

“We visited a sleepy little town that was about 100 miles in. It was a different world, everything was below what I’d ever seen,” Jones said.

The Anhuac minister’s home was a two room shack with dirt floors, pink corrugated steal siding and children everywhere. Gordy was joined by a minister from London who brought along his pregnant wife. They entered the home and were presented by the Anhuac minister’s family one of the most beautiful handmade baby carriers Jones had ever seen.

Instead of using what resources they had to better their own lives, they’d bestowed this heartfelt gift onto people visiting from another land.

“They thought nothing of their own circumstances, that just impressed the time out of me,” he said.

That mindset and the arrival of the moment in life where he could cut back professionally spurred him to become an ordained minister and open a church — Shepherd’s House on Buckner.

“Our first focus was ‘how can we help?’” he said.

Here’s where we come to the point. One of the issues near and dear to their collective hearts is homelessness. The church owns a building with five apartments where people in need of shelter find help. When there is no shelter at the proverbial inn, Gordy, supported by his parishioners, finds a way to get them what they need. That’s what it’s all about.

Jones is sometimes surprised and sometimes frustrated by the idea many in Maysville have that there aren’t any homeless here. People being housed by the Women’s Crisis Center are homeless or they wouldn’t be at the shelter.

Just because churches, organizations and what Jones describes as “people of good will” are doing what it takes to keep homeless Maysville people off the sidewalk, doesn’t mean there aren’t any homeless.

He wants you to be aware of that, hence the walk.

It begins at Church of Christ in Christian Union on Forest Avenue and makes stops at Shepherd’s House on Buckner, gaining people and steam at House of Prayer on Forest Avenue and Bethel Baptist and on to Rotary Park.

There Rep. Mike Denham, a homeless person and Jones will speak for a short time about the problem of homelessness in Kentucky and Maysville.

The real fun begins after the walk and speeches, however. Residents are asked to bring a box to “sleep” in. Organizers are trying to get more boxes, but there are only a dozen or so at this time so better safe than sorry. Jones wants people to get some kind of understanding of what it’s like to have to sleep outside when it’s cold.

If you can’t bring a box, bring a sleeping bag. If you don’t have a sleeping bag, The Ledger Independent is supplying old newspapers to use as ground insulation or blankets. If you can’t lie on the ground for whatever reason, stay in your car for a couple of hours with the heat off.

People may join the walk at any point or just meet at Rotary Park. Just be there, Jones believes your heart will be touched and you will be moved to join in giving of yourself because you can make a difference.

“I always think of the movie It’s a Wonderful Life. Jimmy Stewart was about to jump off the bridge because he thought his life didn’t mean anything to anyone, that he had done no good, but when Clarence the Angel showed him what Bedford Falls would have been if he hadn’t been there … It just shows how much impact one person can have.”

It’s not just true in Bedford Falls, he notes. “It scares me to death what Maysville would look like without the churches and organizations and people of goodwill who give of themselves.”

The event ends at 6 p.m. so you don’t really get to sleep in a box in Rotary Park, but hopefully you’ll get the idea.

“If this helps more people of good will get involved in this issue, this walk will be a success,” Jones said.

For more information please contact Jones at 606-301-1921. There will be a teen focus beginning at 6 p.m. at House of Prayer located at 930 Forest Ave.

The Ledger Independent is online at: http://www.maysville-online.com