Blessed and Highly Favored

My name is Jason J. Day. I am a soldier in the army of God. The Lord Jesus Christ is my commanding officer. The Holy Bible is my Code of Conduct. Faith, prayer,and the Word are my weapons of warfare. I have been taught by the Holy Spirit, trained by experience, tried by adversity. I have a desire to effect a change in our society for the homeless …and all those who are lost and suffering. I have made a decision to do just that, to give the lost an opportunity to hope again! I am determined to succeed! Get involved! We are here to offer light to the lost, encouragement for the weary, and hope for the hurting. We are Saved Life. Keep us in your prayers! See ya on the road!

“Come to me all who are weary and burdened and i will give you rest.”

Matthew 11:28

Jason J. Day Interview

Take a look at my first of many interviews for Saved Life: Coast to Coast! I was very nervous and did not think it was very good! I didn’t actually cover all of the material I had wanted too! There is a solution to all of this madness! We believe our “Cities of Refuge” model would help to alleviate the problems of alcoholism, addiction, and chronic homelessness. I am very committed to fulfilling my goals of making this a reality. Join us! Help us to make a difference! What do YOU think of the interview? Please let me know! See ya on the road!

Saved Life Chronicles: Jacksonville Beach, Day One

Wow! Here we are! The day has  finally arrived to start my mission for the homeless! For the next 7 months I will be eating, sleeping, and hanging out on the streets of America to bring you their stories. I had spent most of the weekend packing up the remainder of my apartment and moving things into storage. I experienced a lot of mixed emotions ranging from very excited and anxious to “Wow, I am really doing this.” Many people say they are gonna do a lot of things to help others. Very few actually put the action along with their words. I made a decision a few months ago to do this benefit ride. After my deliverance from alcoholism, I went back to a regular job, with a regular place to live, to a regular mediocre middle-class life.  As I would drive to work I would see the homeless and street people out on the corners and near the abandoned buildings. My heart went out to them. I knew what they felt because I had personally experienced homelessness for myself! Frequent thoughts and questions would come to mind on how I could best help them. “What can I do?” “What can I do Lord?”

Someone once told me the most powerful thing that I had to offer was my testimony. With it, I could give hope to those who suffer from the alcoholism, addiction, and chronic homelessness that keeps them trapped in their own prisons. For the last 4 years I have researched, interned, studied, networked, ministered, and everything else imaginable trying to understand more about the life of the homeless and how I can best use the gifts God has given me to help them. Somewhere along the line, Saved Life was born.

This benefit ride is not about money! I want to make that fact clear. If we raise enough money to reach our goals, fine! If we don’t, that is fine too! This ride is about bringing the much-needed awareness to how these lost, sick, and suffering “Children of God” are living in the shame, guilt, condemnation, and addiction that is destroying them. We will bring them a ray of hope. Hope for a better future. I do ask one thing! Volunteer at a local soup kitchen or rescue mission. Say a kind word to a stranger. Get involved! Tell your friends about our mission. Subscribe to the blog! Do SOMETHING! If you feel led to donate, by all means donate. Please use the ratings system and give us some feedback. We want to know what you think. Alright, that was more than a word, but you understand what I mean!

We will soon be bringing you stories from the streets. It will take me a couple of days to get used to this idea of being homeless, so bear with me. Be Blessed and I will see you again soon! See ya on the road! Or rather, see ya at the beach!

Peace be with you,

Jason

Jason and a man named Randy under the “Overpass”, January 2010

Saved Life Chronicles begins Monday, February 15th, 2010

Beginning Monday, I will start my 30 days with the homeless in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. I want to bring you their story. I want to, hopefully, let you see what I see when I am with these men, women, and children. I want you to feel the compassion, the compassion I feel for them. I want you to see life through their eyes. I want you to see their pain, their sorrow, and their joy. I want you to see that we, as Christians, can bring them hope through Jesus Christ. And hopefully, I will make you want to reach out and help them.

Words cannot really explain how I feel about them. I was asked just the other day, “How do you feel about them?” When i think about the homeless, one word comes to mind. Love! I love them. These “Children” of the street are also “Children of God. Jesus commanded us to “Love your neighbor as yourself“ in Matthew 22:39. Are not the homeless our neighbors? Are not the street people you see on the corners, near the abandoned buildings, in the alleys, sleeping on park benches, and so forth, are they not your neighbors?

The Websters dictionary defines the word neighbor as follows, there are actually two definitions:

1 : one living or located near another
2 : fellow man

Statistics from the National Coalition for the Homeless, one of our outreach partners, had this to say in one of their studies:

“As a result of methodological and financial constraints, (we need to raise more money for programs to help the homeless) most studies are limited to counting people who are in shelters or on the streets. While this approach may yield useful information about the number of people who use services such as shelters and soup kitchens, or who are easy to locate on the street, it can result in underestimates of homelessness. (Studies show that it is very hard to count those who may be sleeping in the woods, obscure areas, etc.) Many people who lack a stable, permanent residence have few shelter options because shelters are filled to capacity or are unavailable. A recent study conducted by the U.S. Conference of Mayors found that 12 of the 23 cities surveyed had to turn people in need of shelter away due to a lack of capacity. Ten of the cities found an increase in households with children seeking access to shelters and transitional housing while six cities cited increases in the numbers of individuals seeking these resources (U.S. Conference of Mayors, 2007). (Speaks for itself, they are sleeping somewhere, maybe in your NEIGHBORhood)

In addition, a study of homelessness in 50 cities found that in virtually every city, the city’s official estimated number of homeless people greatly exceeded the number of emergency shelter and transitional housing spaces (We need to provide funding to have more shelters and regeneration centers, such as we are proposing at Saved Life) (National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, 2004). Moreover, there are few or no shelters in rural areas of the United States (like Upstate New York where we propose our Regeneration Minitry), despite significant levels of homelessness (Brown, 2002).

Source: National Coalition for the Homeless

My paraphrases are in BLUE

Bottom line:

Most of us who live in any city or major suburb have homeless men, women, and children living near them. They are our neighbors and fellow man by every definition of the word. If we are commanded by Jesus to “Love your neighbor as yourself.” and we sit idly by and do nothing to help them, nothing to reach out to them, do nothing to even offer a smile. What does that say to us about the person we are? What does that say about the community we live in? What does that say about the country we live in? I believe, homelessness is the greatest social disaster in America! The measure of any society is how it treats its weakest element. The widows, the orphans,  the strangers in the land.

The root word of community is UNITY! This is a call to action! I am asking that you unite with Saved Life on this Coast to Coast benefit ride and DO SOMETHING to make a difference! Donate Today! Volunteer at a soup kitchen or mission! Even a smile helps, they don’t take much time or cost a thing! Be blessed!

See ya on the road!

Jason

Feedback Forum

“Brothers (and Sisters), I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But, one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (paraphrased by me)

Philipians 3:14

Friends of Saved Life,

First of all I would like to thank you for all the support, prayers, and help to make my dream a reality! We are now asking for your opinion.

• What kind of content would you like to see on this website?
• How can we best bring the story of homelessness and addiction to you?
• Fundraising Ideas?
• How can we best unify the Body of Christ towards a common Good?
• Is the website easy to navigate?
• Have you subscribed to my daily blog?
• Am i expressing my vision enough that you can see the “Big Picture” of what I am trying to accomplish?

Please help us to help them. Your feedback and input is very important to us, to me,  as an organization, and to us as the Body of Christ! Most of you already know that I am a recovered alcoholic. Most of you also know that I spent an amount of time homeless because of my alcoholism! This is where my passion comes from! Pure gratitude to God, His Son Jesus Christ, and the written Word of God that delivered me from a horrible and misunderstood state of homelessness and chronic alcoholism. I am truly blessed because I am sober today and have been given an opportunity to bring this message of hope to you. I have been wracking my brain on ways to best tell you my story and the stories of those who are still suffering. Sometimes I have a lot of emotion concerning this issue and find it hard to put it into words.

Please leave comments and let me hear your ideas! No idea is a bad idea! Only those ideas that go unnoticed are bad, because you did not let the rest of us hear it! Anyhow, I have rambled enough. I love you all and may Peace be with you! See ya on the road!

One more thing before I forget! Our goal is to raise $3.5 Million dollars for the goals listed on our Financial Goals page. Over 1,500 site visits and donations have been almost nil! I am here to show you how committed I am to helping the homeless and this cause of promoting  Christian Recovery efforts! Our scheduled deadline was Labor Day 2010 in Santa Monica, California. If we do not raise the money by then, I am not gonna stop until we do, I will continue on to a new city with new faces that need our help. Whether it takes another 6 months or 6 years, I will not give up in what I believe. Jesus Christ SAVED my LIFE and I am grateful enough to tell the whole world about it! I have a DESIRE to meet this goal, I have DECIDED to do this benefit ride, and I am DETERMINED to see it through to completion! DESIRE. DECISION. DETERMINATION

See ya on the road!

Jason