Well, I made it through day 2 at Love & Care Ministries! And it was a great day!
The day started early again – 7:15am. When I got to the kitchen, I noticed that lots of people were already there for breakfast. So, I hopped right in to help – Janet (my boss) allowed me to step in for her in the serving line. Today, we had considerably more “friends” (the term we use for the people that come in for free meals). We had over 100 for breakfast!
After breakfast, Mark Hewitt, the Executive Director of Love & Care, conducted a staff devotional. He challenged us to show more love to our friends and to engage them more. It was a wonderful message to get all of us focused.
After the devotional, we went back to the kitchen where Janet directed our preparation for the lunch crowd. I had to cut away for a while in order to help Larry, the manager of the food pantry, unload approximately a gazzilion cases of various bottled drinks. Let’s put it this way, it was about 40 degrees this morning, and by the time we had finished unloading the drinks, I was sweating like crazy! It was a great workout!
By the time I had finished helping Larry, it was just about time to serve lunch – 11:30 to 1:00. We had a much bigger crowd for lunch as compared to yesterday – close to 200! While we were serving lunch, Janet began preparing “to-go boxes” for an afternoon delivering meals on the street.
At about 1:30pm, Janet said, “Let’s go!” So we (3 volunteers, Janet and Larry) loaded up a truck with 84 meals and over 120 drinks, and we hit the streets delivering meals to anyone that we identified as homeless. In addition, we stopped by a few motels that Janet knew housed some people that really needed a meal. To end the day, we stopped by an extremely modest home (an overstatement) to deliver the remainder of our meals and drinks to a grandmother that was taking care of 11 grandchildren – that’s not a misprint, 11 grandchildren!
Today, Janet taught me a few valuable lessons:
- Know the people – Janet really knew the people we delivered meals to.
- Love the people – Janet loved on everyone we saw.
- Don’t judge the people – Janet showed no judgement, even though we saw some people that were not the most respectable of people (to say the least).
- Bless the People – Janet made sure that before we left each person, we blessed them (each person knew that we were there in the name of Jesus).
Another wonderful day at Love & Care!
Blessings, Kris