FRIDAY, MARCH 13
John 21:17 “Do you love me?” “Feed my sheep.”
I believe that Easter is a season of special joy and that Christ’s resurrection is the central event of my faith. Lent offers me a time to reflect on how I live compared with my understanding of God’s expectations. Foremost, I have been thinking about love. Christ taught us to love one another. That is a tall order. I often fall short.
I would like to share a story of some folks that I met just last week. These people know about Christ’s love and I don’t think they will mind my sharing their story with you. Let it begin with a question. How do you feed 3,000??? This is the number of hot lunches that will be served to guests of the “Welcome Inn” between Dec 15 and March 13, 2009. Does it take a miracle? Roy Watson, executive director of the Welcome Inn thinks so.
This story began several years ago when some folks decided that somehow they were going to help provide a place in their community for the homeless to go during the daylight of winter’s coldest months. Nobody usually welcomes the homeless. But these good folks wanted to help by providing an alternative to public buildings and bus stations where these homeless might keep warm, be welcomed, fed, and referred to social services or get showers or a hair-cut during the day.
Like many outreach programs this started with church volunteers and donations that helped get the program started. No small task. But sustaining such a program is a huge task. They wanted to be “open for business” five days a week. That required more than their small budget could handle and they were in need of help if they were going to survive. That is when an answer came from within. One of their “guests” volunteered to help. She wrote up some recipes for several casseroles and contacted some local organizations and churches and, in short, organized a daily casserole donation program that feeds 3,000 hot lunch meals today. The mystery is that once this program was well organized, up and running smoothly, the woman simply disappeared. Homeless, they were unable to track her. Roy prefers to think that she may have been an Angel.
Prayer: Lord, may we serve you more faithfully, may we love you more truly. Amen.
Tom Thoresen
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