40 People For Dinner

These past few weekends I’ve rested. I mean rested from work. I still do a lot of chores and errands. Endless endless errands.

Last night 3 of my guests cancelled out on dinner so I drove up to Kendra’s and we started our trip down to the restaurant. I asked her how come she can come to all the dinners but not always the community service and she laughed as if I was joking. Any way it was raining and I like that.

We got to the restaurant, there were about 40 of us in all. I sat beside Leslie who lives in Aurora. She works at a Christian company that takes care of the disabled. She earns a decent salary. Has a big family. Does a gift exchange for Christmas instead of buying hundreds of gifts. She tried some of my fish and chips and I tried some of her steak and I realized I should have ordered the steak. Dinner was super delicious.

Anyway, we did a gift exchange, you know that game where you choose a gift or steal a gift from someone else. I hate the game but whatever. Well I brought a bamboo plant, in a very nicely decorated pot. A small child, a girl asked for it at the end of the evening and of course it was given to her. I got a bag of gum and a coffee mug, I gave it to Kendra, I would never use it.

It was fun to have fun time with everyone. You know we weren’t talking business or ministry or anything like that (for the most part) I mean we mentioned stuff here and there but we were really just having a good time. For the last few years we’ve just been feeding the homeless and talking to people about Jesus and we haven’t had much time to just be friends.

Of course today it’s back to work. I’m prepping to chat with the young adults about outreach opportunities tonight and try to get the lazy bums motivated for something other than free food. Have I mentioned I hate young adults?

Progress

7 people signed up for homeless outreach. 3 of them showed, plus another 9 who didn’t sign up which was a pleasant surprise. We went to a church in Toronto for orientation (which was a mistake, I should have just trained them myself) then went downtown and split up into groups. Giving out food and supplies to the homeless and talking to them, trying to give them hope for the present and future. Some of the homeless hid in the corners of ally’s and bushes and others were bold and put themselves on the sidewalk. Some didn’t even have sleeping bags or blankets. Some stored away our food for later and others gobbled it up right away. When we got back some of the group thanked me and asked if they could come along more often. Progress.