Pastor's Letter - February

Pastor’s Letter
February, 2020

Greetings to you in the name of the Father, and of the son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

You might not know the name Micah Hyde. He's a professional football player, he's been to one Pro Bowl, and currently plays as a safety for the Buffalo Bills. No offense to Bills fans, but the team he plays for might be a reason you don't know him like you would know some others.

Regardless, Micah Hyde grew up in Fostoria, Ohio, in the northwest part of that state. It's not a big place, roughly the size of Pottsville, and economically, it bears a similar profile as well: a once-larger town based in part on an industry that doesn't have the significance it once did (In Pottsville's case, of course, that is coal mining; Fostoria was known for natural gas). Micah attended Fostoria High School as a youth and was known for his athletic prowess, lettering in baseball, basketball, and football.

68% of the students in the Fostoria City Schools currently qualify for free and reduced lunch. Just in case you were wondering, this is well above the national average, which is 51 percent. There are a lot of factors that contribute to this, including 11% of the people in Fostoria living below the poverty line and a declining population that reached its peak in the 1950s but has fallen significantly because of the loss of employment opportunities in the area.

About one month ago, Micah Hyde surprised the school district, the place where he came from, by completely paying off the lunch debt for all students in the school district. He just paid the whole thing off.

Believe it or not, what he did was very biblical. Or more to the point, in doing what he did, Hyde played out Biblical principles concerning debt, which are rooted in God's sense of grace and compassion. In the book of Exodus, God instructs money lenders to take no interest from poor people who have borrowed money. In Deuteronomy, there is a rule amongst the Jewish community that all debts shall be cancelled every seven years. These are not rules that we really follow in our society anymore for various reasons.

I don't want to completely overblow this. The total paid was a little under $1500. Hyde signed a 5 year contract in 2017 with the Bills worth more than 30 million dollars. He's not exactly hurting after this. But it was still an act of kindness and compassion. When he was asked by his local media about this, he stated that he wanted to take this burden away so that families affected could put all their energy into helping their kids succeed both academically and athletically.

What acts of compassion can you do? Maybe you don't have $1500 to throw at a similar program. Maybe you don't have the same resources as a professional football player.

But you still have the Holy Spirit, which is encouraging you to act in Faith, Hope, and Love to those around you.

Not too long ago I saw something really interesting. This was before Thanksgiving. I was driving from the Weis Markets in Shamokin towards my house. Not too far from my own home, there's a home of an older woman who has been going through some struggles. Many of us know her because she walks the town all the time. Her husband died years ago, and her son committed suicide not too long after we moved into town. I saw one of our neighbors with a bag of what looked like cereal, bread, and assorted goodies drop that bag, ring her doorbell, and walk away quickly. I parked the car in front of my house and waited a few moments before he ran-walked in front of my house. I startled him as I emerged from my car, and I asked him if he was doing what I thought he was doing. Sure enough, he was. He bought some extra food when getting his own groceries, he told me, and he was dropping them off, but doing it so that she didn't know that it was him. I smiled and we went on with our day. See, good things DO happen in Shamokin!

Compassion doesn't have to be the biggest act for it to make a difference.

Peace to you along the way,
Pastor Brian