Dude! Share The Food!

Marcus (one of our homeless friends, who lives with Charles under the bridge) passes along his thanks to the DSTF family.  He helped me Tuesday evening and had a blast!

As I was driving downtown I asked the Holy Spirit to lead me where he wanted me to go.  When I got to Charles and Marcus there was no-one else around and I was going to take the remainder of the meals to the shelter and go home.  But as we were talking, Marcus eagerly asked if he could give out meals while I gave out water.  I was puzzled because no one was around.  He immediately yelled at a couple of people down the street. “Hey! Y’all come here!” Before you know it we had a crowd.

Charles was introducing me to everybody under the sun while Marcus made sure everyone was taken care of.  When we were out of meals, there were a couple people without anything so Charles and Marcus gave them some of their own food.

Marcus wanted me to make sure everybody knew how thankful he was. “Tell Erik and everybody we worked as a team!”  It was good to see a spark in his eye and joy in his heart.

Wil

wow, it was super hot downtown yesterday.

wil and i shared 100+ meals, and a whole bunch of drinks.  bottled cold drinks, some 1-gal jugs of water, some sweet tea, and 2-liter drinks, too.

at Little 5 Pts., people were just coming to the truck, people that were not homeless: no problem, we’re just here to give it away.

one guy, in his fancy, original “Air Jordans”, said “guess who i just saw”  - “who?” - “dave chapelle. look, i got my picture with him” and he showed me on his fancy phone.

so, i’m like “cool”, and blah blah blah.  but, i was able to say “God bless”, so, maybe we just watered a previously planted seed.

it’s all good!

eh

(tomorrow, we’ll serve our 40,000th meal in just 23 months.  AWESOME!!)

Praise God!  Our request for gallon jugs has been answered.  A local company donated 192 brand new gallon bottle with lids.  We do not need any additional donations at this time.

Lynn

The people living on the streets do not have easy access to clean water. If you have any  clean gallon plastic jugs, such as the ones you get from the store with tea and lemonade, would you be willing donate them to us.    We will fill them with water and take them out with the meals that are shared.

We will have a bin in the back hall near the kitchen for donations.

Thank you.

hey

haven’t been typing much lately…  maybe i think it’s like schoolwork (which i rarely did any of…)

just a note to say thanks to all that help out!

and, you might want to check out some video that was taken a couple weeks ago with rusty.  this motorcycle group is going to have a benefit ride for Innermission/ DudeShareTheFood!

http://www.youtube.com/user/Kingkustomcycles

y’all be good

eh

wow!

God gave me a street-story yesterday, which was super-cool, since i had just prayed for a new story!

it was a dark and stormy night. (jk. that just sounds cool.)

so, anyway, it actually was a rainy day in atlanta, and i had about 150 lunches and some ice-water loaded into the ol’ nissan pickup… i had the great privilege of taking two 8th graders with me for the day (pretty cool kids, actually. daniel and trent. nice guys)

when it’s raining, it can be quite a feat to find homeless people.  they try desperately to stay dry, since it’s so much more of a problem for them to be wet than for us home-d people.  most of us are happy to see the rain, but for them, it’s the enemy…

so, finally it stopped raining, and we went to this parking lot where we can usually give ‘em away pretty quickly.

one quiet, young, black man got his lunch, and hung around the truck while others got their lunches.  after i’d let another man use my phone, he timidly asked if he could call someone.  he seemed to almost be crying like a lost child.  you know, quivering lip, shaky voice.

finally, we got through to the voice mail of his father.  the young man asked me to leave a message, telling him we were on the corner of Peachtree and Trinity, and to ask if he would pick him up or bring him some food.

the father called back immediately.  he was looking for the boy just a few blocks away, at Underground Atlanta!

he told me that at 17, the young man had been hit by a car that ran a red light, and that he had lost part of his brain, and gets confused sometimes… and that he’d left his uncle’s house in Alabama a couple days ago, on a bus, and they’d been trying to find him!

fifteen minutes later, a fine looking man in a fine looking Lexus pulled in.  they were happy to see each other, and the father teased the son a little bit.  “we need to get you cleaned up a little bit.  get you some better clothes.  and you need a little shave”.  rubbing his beard, the young man replied “i need a lotta shave”, and we all laughed.

he asked about our routine, and i told him we come out to share food 3 times a week.  i told him how i felt that sometimes, it seems some of the people are scamming us, and that they might not actually “need” a meal, but that other times, we just know we’re helping out a great need.

hugs were exchanged.  the man gave us some money to help us share more food.

no doubt this time; we had truly just helped out a great need. . .

yep.  i know what you’re thinking, and you’re right.  there are many similarities in this story to our story.  damaged.  lost.  confused.  found.  a lotta cleaning up needed.

go ahead and think those thoughts.  then give thanks.  both for his story, and for our stories.

eh

sunday, we took our normal batch of 100 lunches donwtown.  we were also able to take some nice goodies…

a ladies group had donated some sweet tea, ceasar salads, pasta salads, spinach/chicken/onion salads, coconut pie, and key lime pie.  man, the guys in the woods (and one lady) tore that stuff up!! (and i enjoyed a piece of the key lime pie myself… mmmmm good!)

quite different than the normal lunch we share.  of course, i’m not knockin’ the lunches we share. we try to make the most number of lunches we can for the money spent, without spreading it too thin.  i guess we have to fall somewhere in between the steaks that we’d like to share, and the ramen noodle or rice type of meal that would cost just a few pennies…

but, yeah, it was nice.  and quite a pleasure to have my son out there with me, too.  love that guy…

keep giving!!

eh

yesterday, mike and i were sharing food in downtown atlanta. then we got kicked off the property.

to be honest, that’s kinda fun for me….

maybe we should keep a count of the times we get kicked off of a property….???

eh

each sunday, we take lunches to many areas of atlanta.  one place is near some RR tracks in a patch of woods.

some guys have set up their own shacks, or huts, or lean-to’s, and we’re getting to know and love them.

last week, we were hanging out, sharing a meal together, and somebody got started singing ‘hall & oates’ tunes.  don’t know how it started, but there we were, standing in the woods, around the back of my truck, singin and laughin and havin a good time….”remember this one?”  or “how bout this one?”  “was that hall and oates?”…..”oh, yeah, that’s a good one”

sharing food is more than just sharing food.  (don’t worry, we pray together sometimes, too…)

eh

“i can’t go for that, noooooo, no can do”  (stuck in your head now. HA!)