Week #5 - 7/24/12

Learned a few things today…you CAN have TOO many with you passing out lunches.  We had a surprise family in addition to two other families come with us today which was awesome, but it was a different experience.  We had many refuse a lunch (perhaps we were intimidating as a large group?) and I felt like we missed out on the personal aspect.  Hopefully we can still have everyone serve, just in smaller doses.  :)


UPDATE (January 2013):  I think that there is a way to make it work if there are a lot of volunteers, it just looks different than the typical week of walking around passing the lunches out.  At this point (going on the 8th month), now that relationships have been created, I think my friends downtown appreciate when there are more volunteers showing up for them.  I think it was just too intimidating in the beginning before those friendships had been formed.

Thoughts

I’ve already been thinking about what our meal delivery will look like in the winter.  I am hoping to be able to make a hearty soup of some kind each week to pass out.      

Every week I get butterflies in my stomach on our way to the park as we approach our parking spot.  And every week, by the time we have passed out all of our lunches, I am reeling from the spectrum of emotions I have experienced from serving these lost people in the park.  Every week I am truly humbled.  Almost every single person we give a lunch to wishes God’s blessings on us.  Many ask us to pray with them before we can even offer.  They don’t flinch from our touch.  It’s obvious that many of them know Jesus.  They don’t seem to reject Him or blame Him because of the troubles they are facing or the situation they are in, but instead reach for Him. 

Tomorrow will only be my 5^th Tuesday.  Excluding myself and my own 3 kids, I have already had 9 different people serve with us and 3 more ‘newbie’s’ tomorrow.

Week #4 – 7/17/12

Another great week!  We had some dear family friends that were visiting from Florida with us today and the same dear friend and her kiddos from last week with us as well.  What an experience with the kids!  I wonder what is going on in their precious little minds?  We prayed with several of the men which was an AWESOME experience.  The BEST was when we came to the bus stop bench and ‘Mr. Cranky’ from Week #1 was there!  Turns out his name is Reggie which we will rightfully be referring to him as from this point on.  He asked me to pray with him today which was humbling.  We had just over 50 sandwiches (thank you to Brandy for the boost today!) and handed them all out with the help of the 6 kiddos that were with us.  We had a young gentleman from the first bench we stopped by that walked with us for half of the park to make sure all of the people we encountered were appreciative which was a little comical (and very sweet).  I also encountered David who was a unique character and kept calling me Red which was funny since I was not wearing anything red and as far as I know, I don’t have red hair either.  I had the privilege to pray with him too.

Week #3 – 7/10/12

This was a great week.  We had a very dear friend and her kiddos with us today.  There were a few people that recognized us from the two previous weeks.  We prayed with a few people today which was very cool!  We met Mr. Tim and Wayne (who is a line cook looking for a job).  There were quite a few people in the park today…I assume b/c the weather was very nice.  We didn’t even have enough lunches to go over to the other side of the park which was heartbreaking.

Week #2 – 7/3/12

Thankfully, Tori was able to go with us this week.  After last week’s experience, we started at the bus stop.  There was a young woman there that we gave a lunch to who repeatedly reminded us that she was not homeless to which I responded…’that’s just fine…we don’t discriminate.’  Almost everyone we passed a lunch out to said ‘God Bless You.’  Most are very kind and appreciative.  They also seem to really enjoy the kids.  We offer a lunch to everyone we see.  Last week everyone accepted a lunch, but this week we had a few (not many) that refused.

PS. Did pay the parking meter today.