I realized I'm doing this a little backwards. I'm writing about the day before it happens. How do I fix that? Write about the day that night and post it the next day. So I am writing this post on Monday night, but I'll post it Tuesday morning (now) before we leave. We have an early start Tuesday (today), so I don't want to leave you hanging. Now that I know the password to get online, it should make my life easier.
We were pioneers on Monday. First, we went to the Campus for Human Development and did a foot washing. We washed about 24 feet. The patrons are welcomed into the campus for the day. It's one of the few day shelters. There is so much going on there, it was a bit overwhelming when we got the tour at the end of our work time. The one thing that stuck out most in my mind is the tree (a sculpture) in their lobby. The trunk of the tree was metal. All of the leaves were clay and had names written on each one. The leaves represented the people from this community who have passed away. They are people too and deserve to be remembered. The Campus helps people from Vets to those who have addictions. They have permanent housing in their brand new building.
We ate lunch in the car as we headed over to the next site, Siloam Family Health Center. This is a Christian medical facility for those who are uninsured. Our sole purpose was to go throughout the center praying. We were given a tour by the very energetic Kate. She explained the vision and the purpose. They have over 60 different languages being spoken and a couple hundred volunteers between the medical volunteers, translators, prayer volunteers and Board of Trustees. There are 32 paid staff. We watched a short video that gave us a better insight into the people that are being served. Kate also told us that if anyone was uncomfortable praying that we could help file in the front desk area.
I started walking around and I was praying for all the different people who come from different countries, I walked to the nurses station and I was praying there, then I remembered that Kate had asked for someone to help file. Since I am pretty organized, I felt like I could do that. I found Kate and she took me to the front office where Anna gave me a four page list of files to pull for patients who will be coming back for a referral. I had pulled a couple and realized I should be praying for each of them as I pulled them. Once I started doing that, each time I went to search for a name, the first folder I touched would be the name I was looking for.
Then we headed went to the store and bought the ingredients to make tacos for our last stop, Open Table. This is a parsonage that turned into housing for homeless. It is currently housing sixteen persons. The young adults cooked and prepared dinner. A few of the residents joined us. We had fellowship and enjoyed dinner. It was delicious. We had ice cream with chocolate sauce and butterscotch sauce for dessert.
We came back to the church and debriefed.
I will give you the schedule for Tuesday and then will post about it for tomorrow (if that's not too confusing).
Devotions are at 7:30a, led by me! We will head over to the Salvation Army to fellowship with homeless people as they eat breakfast. Then we'll head to another day shelter to prepare and serve lunch. The last thing we'll be doing is going to The Next Door which is a ministry that helps women coming out of crisis situations. We won't be working directly with the women, we'll be packing care packages or something like that.
The thing we need to remember is to be F.A.T. (for Jesus)
Flexible
Available
Teachable
We added the "for Jesus". We can be fat for Jesus. Isn't that great?
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