December 2nd's outing

Hello everyone! The problem with having a blog is keeping up with it…  I promise to do better going forward!

It’s been six months and we’ve been busy. When I asked Wyan, the day manager at Woods Mullen about serving over the summer he said, “we’ll all be here”. I said to myself, dah, stupid question… So we went for it, knowing getting volunteers can be tough during the summer. Thank you everyone who helped. We had no issues keeping up and I know the women at WM appreciated it. Being consistent really means something. We made knew friends, got to know some old ones better and got to experience the excitement of people moving in to a place of their own – awesome!

ver the summer I saw a movie at Old South Church called “Under the Bridge”. The director and crew spent a summer with a homeless community living under a bridge in Indianapolis. The movie presented many different viewpoints from politicians, neighbors, churches, other shelters, etc. It really made you think. The movie is available on Amazon. I hope to show it to SHF before this year’s mission trip. Maybe we can get a group together?

So it is Christmas… the fall has gone fast. We have kept up with two or three visits to WM each month. The fellowship of cooking never gets old. People still make their sandwiches to the left or to the right, or up and down and usually in the opposite direction of their neighbor. Come and cook with us and you will see what I mean.
 
During our days serving at South Station and Boston Common we got to be known as “The Chili People." It seems at WM we are now known as “The Pickle People.” The women love the pickles, although when we arrive I do hear the word spread that “the church is here”.

The past few years I have been invited to serve Thanksgiving dinner at Boston Garden on the Tuesday or Monday before Thanksgiving. I usually see several of our friends from the old days. They don’t usually recognize me until I say that I am one of "The Chili People." Then we reminisce, everyone remembers Amy and Bill. Most have moved into an apartment or room, but are still around South Station or the Common and the rumor is always that we are coming back…  
 
Last week I messed up. I forget to buy the pickles, I was going to take a week off from bingo, and then I over cooked the brownies. I worry about every one of our outings and I thought the women would let me have it for no pickles/no bingo and then there was the brownies. Before I go on, nearly every week that I can remember, Laura S has been donating Dancing Deer brownies for us to serve – thank you Laura! So back to last weekend. I should know better than to worry, God will take care of my worries. No one complained about bingo or pickles. Everyone seemed to understand. They told me that they appreciated them, but they did not complain or give me grief. The brownies on the other hand were pretty hard and complaints started coming down to the serving area. The staff got upset at the women for complaining. God got us all together. I told the staff the women could complain about the brownies (some were really hard) and that I could take it. I had plenty of brownies and sorted through to find the softest ones and brought them out to make amends. The women were great. My brownies gave us plenty to talk about! Everyone had advice and we laughed a lot. God is awesome. We are making brownies again for our Dec 17th outing. With God’s help we will be redeemed… Come and join us.