I thought posting some news stories about Lucious would be a great way to help preserve his memory and his ministry.
Community center leader teaches lesson in forgiveness
Indianapolis - It will be hard to find someone in central Indiana going without a Thanksgiving meal Thursday. That's because so many volunteers are seeing to those who need them.
Volunteers are busy at the annual Mozel Sanders Thanksgiving Day Food Giveaway, a 35-year tradition. Another man who's spent more than two decades feeding the hungry every day is 92-year-old Lucious Newsome.
Last Thanksgiving someone shot up the community center Newsome had just opened. Since then, Newsome says he's been praying for that person.
When the door to Anna's House swung open last week, the person standing before Lucious Newsome was a complete stranger.
Read the rest of the story here.
Lord’s beggar – 90-yr.-old Catholic will serve poor until ‘God calls me’
By John Shaughnessy
7/14/2006
The Criterion (www.criteriononline.com)
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (The Criterion) – At 90, Lucious Newsom hitches up his blue bib overalls and climbs into his white van, preparing to continue his work as “the Lord’s beggar for the poor” – a role he has served for 18 years in Indianapolis.
‘LORD’S BEGGAR’ DISTRIBUTES FOOD – Lucious Newsom, in the blue bib overalls recognizable to those he serves, talks with two women who come to get food that he begged for and collected from an Indianapolis, Ind., company. The 90-year-old “Lord’s beggar for the poor” has been working for 18 years to provide aid to the poor. (The Criterion)
Pulling the van away from the curb, the retired Baptist minister-turned-Catholic waves goodbye to some of the 89 Hispanic families who have just spent the last 30 minutes filling their laundry baskets and milk crates with free tomatoes, onions, peppers and other vegetables – produce that Newsom begged for and collected from an Indianapolis company shortly after he awakened at 4:15 a.m. on this sunny, steamy morning.
Now, as a gold crucifix bounces around his neck – a gift from the families he has just helped – Newsom weaves the van through the city’s near-westside, heading toward a place that he views as a beacon of hope and promise in an area scarred by poverty, crime and drugs.
The place is called “Anna’s House,” a clinic and learning center that will offer food, dental care, medical help and educational services, including tutoring and computer training for children.
Scheduled to open on July 29, Anna’s House is Newsom’s dream to make a lasting difference in the lives of people who struggle against the odds. The house is named in honor of Anna Molloy, a 10-year-old blond-haired, brown-eyed member of St. Jude Parish in Indianapolis, who helps Newsom feed the poor from her wheelchair.
“I named it for her because of her hard work and her love of Jesus,” Newsom says. “She’s on oxygen all the time, and she still keeps coming out to help me.”
Read the rest of the story here.
Lucious Newsom, ‘the Lord’s beggar for the poor,’ dies at 93
By John Shaughnessy
Let’s start with a telling story from the remarkable life of Lucious Newsom, “the Lord’s beggar for the poor” who died on Aug. 18 after 20 years of feeding the needy in Indianapolis and nourishing the souls of the volunteers who helped him.
The story involves one of the thousands of people the retired Baptist-minister-turned Catholic served as he drove through the city in his white van while wearing his trademark blue bib overalls and a gold crucifix that was a gift from the families he helped.
In the story, Newsom befriended a little girl whose heart was broken when her mother walked out the door of their family’s home and never returned, leaving the girl, her sister and their father behind.
“The little girl stopped talking after that, for about three years,” recalls Bill Bahler, one of the countless Catholics who volunteered to help Newsom aid people in areas often scarred by poverty, crime and drugs.
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God bless you Lucious and thank you for the ministry you founded.
Mike Ryan
Third Degree Knight