People of Hope:
Each year, Lutherans across the United States engage in acts of service on “God’s Work Our Hands” Sunday, always the second Sunday of September. Of course, most Lutherans engage in service on many other days of the year, too — but on God’s Work Our Hands Sunday, almost every ELCA congregation lends aid to their neighbors.
Here at Esperanza, we will be partnering with Sonoran Prevention Works (https://spwaz.org) to put together much-needed kits for their outreach programs. Since 2011, Sonoran Prevention Works (SPW) has been working to improve the lives of people who use drugs through street-based outreach, organizational capacity building, and statewide advocacy work. I personally have been volunteering with Sonoran Prevention Works since 2016, when the congregation I was serving at the time partnered with them to provide services to those in the congregation using drugs.
As you likely know, opioid overdose deaths have climbed dramatically in the last few years in the U.S. Opioids include fentanyl, heroin, oxycodone, and morphine, among others, meaning that some are legally prescribed, others illicit. Even though many people continue to die of overdoses, Arizona’s opioid overdose death rate leveled off in 2022. While it is not clear what exactly accounts for this change, access to Naloxone seems to have stemmed the tide. Naloxone is the opioid overdose reversal drug, and SPW supplies it to individuals who use drugs, to people in their support systems, and to organizations who work with people who use drugs.
In May, I was volunteering with Sonoran Prevention Works at a church health fair at a church on the southeast side of Phoenix. I was distributing Naloxone and talking with people about it. The staff and volunteer next to me were doing rapid testing for HIV and hepatitis C. An EMT from a different booth wandered by our table, and we got to chatting. I asked him if he ever used Naloxone to save people’s lives. “Every day,” he said. And he and his colleagues get their Naloxone from Sonoran Prevention Works.
Teresa of Avila, 16th century mystic of the church, wrote: Christ has no body but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes with which He looks Compassion on this world, Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good, Yours are the hands with which He blesses all the world.
I hope you will put your hands to work on Sunday, Sept. 10, from 10:15-11:45 a.m. in the Fellowship Hall, that our neighbors might know the compassion of God.
With love,
Pastor Sarah