Beulah Lund is a Washington...
Illustration
Beulah Lund is a Washington state farm wife who embarked on a scary experience. She left her comfortable farm home in eastern Washington and went to Washington, D.C., where for six weeks she roamed the streets as a bag lady. Her interest grew out of a visit to the nation`s capital, where she became concerned about the plight of the poor. "I wanted to know how they lived and I wanted to know how they felt when people were rude to them or treated them like they didn`t exist.
The memory of what she had seen haunted her in the weeks that followed. Little by little she talked her husband and family into letting her go with the promise that she would call her husband every night. Her friends thought she had taken leave of her senses. For six weeks she lived with the homeless. She soon learned how to gather cigarette butts in front of hotels where the wealthy flicked them away waiting on taxis. Known as "Boo to the other homeless women, she shared their misery, hunger, and despa
. "As soon as it got dark we all went to the shelters, she said. "To stay on the streets was an invitation to rape. Despite daily calls to her husband and with the knowledge that she had a home and family, Beulah said life on the street eroded her self-esteem and this once-attractive and outgoing woman became a shabby, smelly derelict.
She used this firsthand experience to appear on talk shows, radio, anywhere, to try to bring the plight of the homeless to the nation`s attention. Is not her experience in some way a reflection of the One who laid aside his heavenly glory and became one of us?
- Meddock
The memory of what she had seen haunted her in the weeks that followed. Little by little she talked her husband and family into letting her go with the promise that she would call her husband every night. Her friends thought she had taken leave of her senses. For six weeks she lived with the homeless. She soon learned how to gather cigarette butts in front of hotels where the wealthy flicked them away waiting on taxis. Known as "Boo to the other homeless women, she shared their misery, hunger, and despa
. "As soon as it got dark we all went to the shelters, she said. "To stay on the streets was an invitation to rape. Despite daily calls to her husband and with the knowledge that she had a home and family, Beulah said life on the street eroded her self-esteem and this once-attractive and outgoing woman became a shabby, smelly derelict.
She used this firsthand experience to appear on talk shows, radio, anywhere, to try to bring the plight of the homeless to the nation`s attention. Is not her experience in some way a reflection of the One who laid aside his heavenly glory and became one of us?
- Meddock
