June 25th Outing

Another great outing Saturday. A full cooking crew, Rich, Angie and their two boys, and Megan with son Kyle. The twins enjoyed breakfast and a movie while we got soup and chili ready and then joined us to make sandwiches. While we cleaned up, the boys put together toothbrush kits and got the toiletries together, a couple of mature 5 year olds…
 
Saturday was a beautiful day and everyone seemed to come in for our lunch. Many compliments to the cooks. We’ll give special credit to Megan for spicing the soup and chili. I forgot to say after the last outing that we discovered the women love pickles. BJs was out of rolls and the pickles called out to me when I was picking up the cold cuts. I don’t think we can have lunch without them again. Everyone is always excited for our lunch, but the pickles seemed over the top. Everyone was looking forward to Bingo after lunch. Rich called a great game.
 
A few things to think/pray about:
I met a young woman who was new to the shelter and she asked where we were from and after I told her she asked if our van would be there tomorrow (Sunday) to pick up people for church. It seemed a letdown to say that we would not be there. As we ate strawberry shortcake after church this morning I keep wondering what if and why not?
When I was pulling things from the STG closet for the toiletry kits I came across a bag labeled “to Steve from Art and Alex.” Inside the bag was a new shirt and pants and winter coat along the cards from my Sunday school class encouraging and congratulating Steve on his new job. This was from the old days of STG.  Alex got to be friends with Steve through STG at South Station. He would ask for something and Alex would make sure we brought it next time, but often Steve was not there and it would be sometime before we saw him again. This bag was from 2010, one of our last outings to South. Alex works in Boston now and still sees Steve on occasion. Pray that Steve can get himself together, and stay together and get/keep that job he hoped for.
Also, pray for all of the workers at Woods Mullen who have a tough job of keeping the shelter orderly and who really care for all of the women. We have watched staff have to speak to guests about behavior, but with compassion that is truly impressive. God is awesome!
 
Watch for future dates, July 30 and August 20 are tentative for now.