Dude! Share The Food!

erty……..

yesterday, we were sharing food in the little-5-pts area, in front of what looks like an empty service station with no pumps (no pumps; a bad thing for the average cross-dresser.)

as we were just getting started, a man pulls up in his fancy truck, and tells robert that he’s the owner, and we need to go somewhere else.  so, we just picked up our stuff and carried it fifty feet to the adjacent parking lot.  well, he came back, and said that wouldn’t work either, but he did allow us to finish.  robert did a great job of calmly showing him God’s love, just by talking gently to him, and the man seemed amazed that an educated engineer like robert would take time to share with people on the street.  to the man’s credit, he’s not a christian, and we can’t expect him to see Jesus where we see Jesus.  (if he’d claimed to be one, i might have come at him like a spider-monkey, asking “what in the world do you think Jesus was talking about in this, this, and this scripture????”  but, he wasn’t, so i didn’t.

so, that’s pretty cool.  kicked off our second spot.  the previous one actually was the grounds of a church (time for a spider-monkey visit???)

anyway, rusty (INNERMISSION) was near woodruff park with a bunch of friends, sharing food and almost getting arrested….. man, what a great weekend!!  (his operation was so big, they needed crowd control, and will need a permit next time.  good job, rusty)

3 different people told me this morning that they want to “get more involved” or “get back involved”.   one of them, who is actually quite involved, admitted that they had been working too much, and missed joining us on saturdays.  (imagine “preacher voice” now) i’m reminded of matthew chapter 21, verse 28-30; two sons, one said he would go work, but didn’t.  the other angrily said he wouldn’t go, but did go.  which one did what the father wanted?  (back to my nasally voice) please, join with me in challenging ourselves to talk less talk, and act more acts.  better to under-promise and over-deliver than vice-versa (check out Eccl. 5:4&5).

(sorry, enough preachy talk.  starting to get on my own nerves; “wow, that guy is really self-righteous” “wait, that’s me! i’m not self-righteous” “yes you are” “i know you are, but what am i?” shut up, vimh!)  (refer to “glasses for pierre” blog)

anyway, sack lunches this saturday, yay!  someone always seems to bring some pimento cheese, and lynn sneaks me a sangwich (as roberto calls it)

love y’all so much!!!

eh

mmmmmm pimento cheese……

well, another great weekend!!!

gorgeous weather saturday, and we got to Hurt Park just in time.  as soon as we were finishing, the police came to clear out the park…. God’s just right on time.

friday afternoon, as you all know (since i know you’re all reading the website schedules…), a few ladies prepped sack lunches.  lynn called me, and said that we were short about 50 bags of chips.  saturday morn, lynn sees me and asks “did you bring some chips?”.  i try to put her at ease by saying “don’t worry, it’ll work out”..(although, i may have forgotten, i’ll never admit).  soon after, as i’m picking up bread from The Pantry (thanks), rusty calls me and says “hey, i dropped off some chips and candy on the bench.”  more than enough chips, and i laugh, because, as usual, God’s just right on time.

one lady gives me $8 to use, i put it in my pocket, and when we get downtown, a guy asks me for $9.  i get 4 quarters from my truck, and think “God’s just right on time.”

sorry if that’s too “Goddy” for ya.  He’s just way too cool for me to ignore.

eh

attached is a note from rusty (innermission),  another “right on time” story…. read on…

hello, long story made short—–the fourth tuesday of every month we go to peachtree & pine st  [task force for the homeless] and feed around 500 men and women. On the way to Atlanta on hwy 5 and douglas blvd, I saw a back pack & sleeping bag in the middle of the road.. I was able to stop and pick it up and just put it in the truck. Went on to Atlanta and had a great time. Today I was able to go by the outreach and help out for a while.  Its a small food bank & clothes closet for the community.  It’s only open on Wednesdays from 9-12. There was a man there looking for help to get to Decatur Alabama.. He is homeless and is going there to try to find his brother to live with.. I offered to take him to Atlanta and buy a bus ticket. he was very happy and ready to go.  Here’s the good stuff…. as we sit in the van talking getting ready to leave, he told me he had lost his back pack & all his clothes and his meds and ID. What are the chances that I had found his back pack and clothes the day before. Praise the Lord —Not only did he find our outreach but we found his belongings .  Its so amazing how He works out the details—  Rusty

the following notes are from rick, who slept overnight on the streets of atlanta, along with his son, jared.

“I finally am able to sit down and put some thoughts together. It’s been a strange week. To start off, God had been working on me for awhile to stay with the homeless one weekend. I didn’t have the opportunity until recently, when I met two beautiful people, Roderick and Terry. We arranged to meet them last Friday at Hurt Park near Ga. State Univ. and when we arrived, and didn’t see them, I begin to panic. But we knew where they were staying, so we drove to their (parking lot) home, got our pack out, parked the truck and then walked two blocks back to Hurt Park. Rod and Terry were there this time plus two other homeless people we knew, Keith and Teresa. They live in an abandoned apartment over by the dome.

What they do for food is to “chase it.” Safe House feeds first, and the line starts to form at 6:30. We hiked about three or four blocks to the safe house and, as we got there, a lady pulled up in a car with clothes, and was mobbed by about 15-20 people. We then were allowed in the safe house and had to listen to a sermon by a man who said he was a pastor, but he acted like a street hood. After the 45 minute sermon, we stood in line to get our food. It tasted very good, since the only thing I had eaten was a pb&j at 11:30 for lunch. Next chase was to Garnett St. (the parking lot where we serve.) It was about 8:30pm when we started to walk, and we had to get there by 9:00 to get fed. But since it was the first of the month, our guide did not think we would have a problem getting fed.

We got there in time and I talked to a couple of the people that were running this outreach. One of the gentlemen has been doing it for 7 years the other one for 3. He said that they come for 4 different churches in Gwinnet county. The preacher here was real good and after he spoke for about 15-20 minutes. We prayed and then we formed lines to be fed. The meal was Church’s Chicken with rice and pinto beans and a cookie. By this time I am over whelmed with humbleness and gratitude at what I have.

The last stop that night was Woodruff Park, where they give out hot soup and coffee. This is their last stop of the night cuz it’s warm and it warms them. There was also a group of teenagers from the Christian college in Toccoa, GA here and they come down every Friday night just to talk to the homeless. They were excited to meet me cuz they had heard what I do for the homeless. I told them that I am just a servant of God doing His will.

Next stop was to bed. Jared and I came sort of ill-prepared, thinking our 30 degree sleeping bags would be enough to keep us warm. Rod gave us a quilt to put under our bags and one to put over us. The temp. got down to 28 degrees. Needless to say, we froze that night. Again, I was humbled by God knowing that at anytime I wanted I could have gotten in my truck to get warm or go home. But also that would have been a win for the Devil, so we suffered, which was gain. I think we slept maybe 2 hours total. They said that’s typical for the first night because of all the noise that goes on. Plus we were fully exposed since where we slept was a parking lot.

Saturday they got us up at 7:00 am and we went to Hurt Park to spend the day. We met several people and food was brought by several different organizations including Erik (the chili was awesome.) For breakfast we had pb&j plus water.

We left Saturday at 4:45 exhausted and very appreciative of what we take for granted. Oh yea, we had to hike about 15 minutes to the student union bldg. to relieve ourselves. On one trip, Jared went with me, and as we were on our way back to the park, there was a Mercedes Benz at a red light with two well dressed black men in front and a well dressed black woman sitting in the back. As we approached the car to go behind it, the woman locked her car door and told the men to do the same. I laughed and told them we were not going to rob them.

I could say a lot more, but maybe another time.

In God’s grace,

Rick”

again, this is so cool, that someone would do this to get a better understanding of what it’s like out there…… thanks guys!    eh

hmmmmm……is that possible???….

last sunday was a memorial service for a guy called “stompy.”  i’d met him a few times.  he lived behind a tire store in douglasville, ga, with jimbo.  one sunday, back in the fall, i took some sack lunches to ‘em, climbed up the rope-path, and sat with ‘em for a while.  they had a little lean-to shack, complete with a fire pit.  it was pretty cold, but the fire felt good, and they offered me a beer while they waited for the nascar race to come on their little battery operated tv.

our food-sharing-friend, danny, seems to have known him quite well.  he took food to these guys frequently.  when he told me that stompy was usually drunk, i got to thinking, “i know that Jesus wouldn’t get drunk, but, he did say that when we help those in need, we’re actually helping him.” (matt. 25)

so, i guess Jesus is not only the hungry man, the thirsty woman, the widow, or the homeless orphan, but, maybe, whoever we help, their descriptions come onto him.  so, we give food to the hungry drunk-man-Jesus; we visit the murderer-prisoner-Jesus; we give water to the thirsty-lying-woman-Jesus.  as disgraceful as it sounds, he can handle it.  as perfect as he is, he still became the murderer and liar on the cross.  and he certainly came out of that with flying-colors in the love department.

as danny helped out the frequently-drunken stompy, he was helping Jesus.  let’s continue to take food to the streets, where we’ll probably come across some that are drunk or high.  but, hey, if they’re hungry – “here’s some food, dude.”

btw, yesterday, we shared our 8000th meal since july!!!!  know this, y’all….. all your efforts are greatly appreciated, and noticed, and written down somewhere.

eh

i’m working today at a tire plant in rome, ga.  as i walk to my truck, through the office halls, i smell some kind of wonderful food…. it appears that some of the office staff is having a meal together.  i notice that i’m almost angry, because, a; they didn’t invite me, and, b; i can’t figure out how to sneak in there and get some!!….

i wonder if that’s how some of our friends feel, as they walk by a restaurant, or outdoor cafe..?… 
boy, it’s fun to share….  eh
                    “it’s so stinkin’ boring to be selfish”…. francis chan

Fellow Food Sharers,

I have added a plugin to the web site that automatically notifies you when a new post is added.

If you want to be automatically notified via email when a new post is added, you need to register on the site (if you have not yet done so) and set your Subscription settings appropriately. To set these options, look under the Profile tab and select the Subscriptions page.

We are doing this so that Erik will not have to post and then send out an email to a separately maintained list of people who may or may not want to get the updates.  And, if you find yourself no longer wanting to receive updates, simply unsubscribe by logging in and changing your settings.

Any questions, just email me.

Thanks,

Dan

what a crazy weekend… what a crazy world we live in…

to finish what i started to say friday, the “couple of people” i was talking about were on their way to atlanta to stay overnight with their newfound homeless friends.  Rick and Jared slept outside, in a parking lot friday night!  how cool is that??!!  (i say “slept”, but i don’t think they slept very much).  thanks, you two, for your heart to help, get to know people, listen to ‘em, and learn more of their true, on-the-street, situations!  i’m sure you’ll have some things to tell us and teach us.

but, that’s just crazy!!  who chooses to sleep on the streets!  i’ve always thought that i’d like to do that, but, i’m always just too busy, or, as it turns out, just too chicken!  someday i’ll do it.  pray for me to get more radical like that.

so, we met them at Hurt park, and served them some chili!  they tried to help, but i said “no, we’re going to serve you!” 

so, the next day at church, rick was telling me about it, then i was talking to mike, then david c. came up to me – “did you read the paper?”, “no”, “they found 4 homeless people dead in different parts of atlanta yesterday morning, probably from exposure!”  NOOOO!!!!

seconds later, ross hands me a newspaper article.  i said “this is probably what david just told me.”  sure enough.  i let rick read it, he let some of the people he brought read it.  some cried.  i was too stunned to cry.  how can this happen in such a wealthy country..!!??

i guess god’s got it all in control…..he allows people to choose their path…..and our choice is “to help, or not to help”….. thanks to all of you that are helping…..

let’s keep it going, eh?..  check tuesday’s needs…  check saturday’s needs…  read the 2 comments posted…  if you’ve never traveled downtown, try it.  come with us, and feel the pain… stretch yourself like rick and jared did…

love y’all

eh

hola! i just don’t know how to put that little thing over the “a”….(btw, “manana” means tomorrow in french)

anyway, just a quick note to remind you to bring som-o-dat good chili…or whatever else you want to bring (see that page to the right for “saturday”-click on that for other things we need) hahaahahahaaaahaha isn’t this cool having a real live website??!!…(thanks, dan, dan, the website man)

you can’t believe what is happening right now, even as i’m typing. a couple of people that help us on tuesdays are……that’s enough for now. i’ll update that topic in a couple of days. let’s just say that they might be getting some chili tomorrow….

so, would somebody please remind me to eat a bowl of chili tomorrow? last time, we had all this beautiful chili, and i didn’t even sample any of it!!! so sad…..

see some of y’all tomorrow!

love ya

eh