Getting to know you
March 10, 2008
It’s Monday 8:53 a.m. The sun is just now peaking over the peaks of the snowcapped mountains, making the snow glow against the sky. Lake Tahoe is a steel blue in the morning light.
I’m trying to find Lisa Marsh’s house. After three phone calls and a trip up and back down a mountain I finally find the house. She is outside waiting with two of her three children, Devon, 4, and Lanie,6, on the front deck waving me in. Lisa is a very open agreeable person and for this I’m thankful.
It is hard to barge into someone’s life with two cameras and a voice recorder and still remain inconspicuous. It is hard to get someone to trust you because you say you want to tell their story. How do they know you will tell it right? How do they know they can trust you with their most intimate moments.
But sometimes a person will open up and when they do the stories you can tell are amazing.
After we drop the kids off at school Lisa goes to work at Hope Lutheran Church.
It is now around 10:30 a.m. Lisa is trying to help out a man named Michael. He has called the church office where she works, asking for money because his wife just had a baby, and through circumstances they are penniless. She has never met this man, but is visibly upset. She offers Michael advice with a shaky voice.
“I know, I’ve been there too,” she says to the phone receiver. Lisa is making frantic calls to the pastor, asking for $20 for gas so the family can make it down the hill to the homeless shelter in Placerville.
“If I had my pay check in the desk right now I would give them the $35 for the motel, for one more night, and $20 for gas, to hell with the electric bill this month, I’ll make a payment. Then I could save them just for one night.”
There is no shelter for such people at the lake.
“We are lucky to have the women’s center.” Lisa said. “It almost makes you wonder, this sounds horrible, but it makes you wonder if it is planned that way.”
The rest of the day is filled with errands; the post office, store, pick up Laney and then—a quick stop at the beach.
The view is always free.
Related posts: [ Thank you ] [ “Love thy neighbor” takes on a new meaning for local church ] [ St. John’s in the Wilderness ] [ Together in prayer, Junto en la oración ] [ Promise to make Tahoe better ]
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