Family life is a bit like a runny peach pie - not perfect but who's complaining? ~Robert Brault

Many of us are blessed to have blood relatives nearby, but some people have virtually no one. Recently, during a jail visit to one of our regulars, I asked, "Are there phone calls I can make for you--someone who needs to know you're in here?"


"Nope," my friend said. "There's no one to call."


Can you imagine suddenly being locked up and having absolutely no family to call? 


Yesterday, we had a combination birthday celebration/baby shower at the Manna House. Charles, who started coming to our mobile meals to eat almost two years ago, was at the party, because he's always at the Manna House these days, sweeping floors, singing songs, and washing dishes. As we all ate cake, he proudly showed me his name tag, which read "Manna Family Member" instead of "Volunteer."


"Ya'll are my family," he said.


"I'm so happy we're your family," I said, "but do you understand that you're our family, too?"


Charles was taken aback. "I am???"


"Of course you are. We're your family, and you're our family." Charles flashed a million-dollar smile and walked away with a bounce in his step.


That's the thing about serving others. You might think they need you--and to a point, of course it's true. But then one day you realize that your life has intertwined with theirs, and there's no "undoing" it. Even as you were becoming family to them, they were doing the same for you. They've taken up residence in your heart and you need them just as much as they need you.


And maybe even more so.

Volunteers and Vittles

Today's post is actually a repost that I ran across while tweaking some things on our website...

On July 24, 2010, Manna Café carried out its first Mobile Pantry with the help of some of the most selfless servants I've ever met. Here's the story of that event: 

Two and a half years ago, Kenny and I were using a borrowed utility wagon (in his words, a glorified little red wagon) to distribute muffins and bagels to the homeless folks in Tent City—the community of tent-dwellers who lived near the river until the flood of 2010 drove them out. This past Saturday, with the help of Fellowship Church and Second Harvest Food Bank, we gave away two trailer truckloads of food. That’s about 30 thousand pounds. Three hundred twenty-five families received everything from whole hams to peanut butter, pasta, bread, and organic veggies. Many families had more than four people per household, so if you do the math, you can safely assume that we touched about 1300 people that day. The enormity of it all made me both laugh and cry.

At around nine on Saturday morning, Kenny got the call that two food trucks were at Exit 11, ready for him to come meet them and show them the way to the church parking lot where the giveaway (officially called a Mobile Pantry) was to take place. Normally, a Mobile Pantry is allotted one tractor trailer of food, but Second Harvest had gone beyond the call of duty to ensure we had an abundance that day. My husband—who looks like the type of guy who might pinch someone’s head off their shoulders under the right circumstances but who’s actually a big softie—confessed that he couldn’t stop crying when he looked into his rearview mirror and saw those two tractor trailers following him. Meanwhile, the rest of the core team and I were at the church, along with a shockingly large group of ready and willing volunteers. The majority were from the host church, but more than a few were from elsewhere. I’d love to know just how many organizations and denominations were represented that day.

Watching the trucks pull into the lot was surreal. But there was little time for reverie; within minutes, the day had begun in earnest. Pallet upon pallet of food was rolled off the two trucks and lined up, assembly-line style, under a few tents meant to shade us from the sun. (It was predicted that the heat index would peak at 107 that afternoon.)

Volunteers jumped into gear. Later, Second Harvest would tell us that this was one of the best-organized Pantries they’d seen. As our assembly line was being sorted out, community folks--dozens and dozens of them--were gathering in droves to sign up for food boxes.

I’ve seen people unite in order to complete a task, but this event will always stand out in my memory. As the day progressed, people found their niches. Their gifts quickly surfaced. We barely had to ask for help before volunteers took on specific jobs—and sometimes we didn’t have to ask at all. Example: at one point, I went inside the building, where our guests were waiting to fill out their applications and receive a number. Behind the kitchen counter was a collection of adolescent girls, hurriedly placing cupcakes on dessert plates and pouring drinks. No doubt an adult got them started, perhaps suggesting that refreshments would be a great idea, but now the oldest person behind that counter looked about 13. Periodically, one of the girls announced from the microphone that anyone who was hungry should help him- or herself to granola, cupcakes, and juice. I stepped behind the counter to wash my hands and thank the girls, but they barely noticed me as one of them asked the others, “Where are the garbage bags? We need a garbage bag!” and the others happily fussed and fretted until the bags had been located.

Meanwhile, outside in the scorching heat, Pastor Charles, who fervently believes that faith is reflected by action in the community, was overjoyed at the scene. And Kenny was in hog heaven—euphoric at the prospect of distributing the mountains of food in front of him. He had mentally charted how things would play out: while volunteers divided up the food at each station (e.g., the canned veggie station), a dozen or so other volunteers would roll shopping carts down the assembly line, collecting a designated amount of food (adding up to a good 70 pounds or so per cart). Then they would each be assigned a guest and would carry the groceries to the guest’s car. For the next several hours, our assembly line volunteers happily performed this task, again and again and again, in the roaring sun.

These wonderful servants just blew me away all day long. They refused to take breaks, claiming “No, I’m fine!” whenever I encouraged them to sit for awhile. One particular woman purchased a dozen or so pizzas with which to feed all the volunteers. A petite, utterly adorable young woman played the part of bouncer, standing all day at the door to the building, directing our guests to their shopping cart volunteers: “Number 178? Right this way… Bob will push your cart to your car, just show him the way. God bless you!” Another volunteer helped hundreds of people fill out their applications, while a couple more sat at the door and personally greeted each guest upon arrival. Several gentlemen in particular acted like pushing shopping carts was the most exciting, delightful thing they’d ever done; I dare say their smiles grew wider as the day progressed and the heat index rose. One young woman who suffered from heat exhaustion two years ago valiantly pushed through her dread of sun exposure rather than miss out on the days’ mission. One of our core team shocked us all, morphing before our eyes into a natural leader; she filled in all the gaps, caught the vision of how things should play out, and understood the logistics as well as Kenny did. She proved so competent that she has since executed a Mobile Pantry with her own team.

I want so much to thank not only the key players of this first Mobile Pantry, but everyone who labored that day—an impossible task, as I didn’t catch all their names. In fact, at the peak of things, when Kenny asked if there were any guests who might be willing to jump in and help while waiting for their turn, we had a handful who readily agreed, and they worked as diligently as everyone else. One man joined the effort on his own, commenting that he and his wife had come to get food, but once he saw what was going on, he knew he was in it for the duration. He turned out to be one of our most cheerful, energetic grocery-cart-pushers.

At the end of the day, 325 families had received food. We were utterly spent, but the job was complete. I believe it’s safe to say that every person who was present that day was changed in some way.

The Book of Love

Back in early January I discovered that one of our Manna Cafe regulars, G, had landed in jail for forgery. G has no family--at least no one who claims him--so he hadn't yet received his "24-hour bag," i.e. the bag of essentials like bath towels and books that every inmate is allowed. So I gathered some things, including a bible, and dropped them off at the jail. 


A few days later, during my first visit to G, I quickly realized that conversation was going to be rough at times, and it's no wonder. He was profoundly depressed. I interact with a lot of broken, confused, hurting people, but G's story is one of the most heartbreaking, and now here he was in jail. To top it off, because of certain issues, he's considered high risk, and therefore he's completely isolated for 23 hours a day, with no communal meals, television, outdoor time, or any other diversion. 


Even so, G was reading his bible every day. He was clearly unfamiliar with it, so he was seeing it with fresh eyes, and he grew more animated as he talked about what he'd read. It was difficult to get through the list of names in the first chapter of Matthew, he said, but the rest of Matthew was pretty good.  


During each subsequent visit, G always mentioned his daily readings. This past weekend he reported, "I'm in Hebrews now. It's all about the heavenly temple. There was a tabernacle on earth, you know, a holy place with a Holy of Holies inside it, but Hebrews explains the heavenly temple and makes comparisons between the one on earth and the one in heaven." 


Wow, I thought. 


But that wasn't even the best of it. G had also been reading Romans. And, in the midst of depression, confusion, and loneliness, he had discovered what some people fail to discover in a lifetime: 


"Romans says a lot about faith . . . but what it's really talking about is love. There's so much about love in there."

Almost Heaven

Friday night worship sessions have become a crucial part of what Manna Cafe is and does. Without "refueling" our spirits and building a foundation of prayer and the presence of God, we can't keep doing what we do. So here I sit, in the loft of the Manna House, i.e. warehouse in which we keep thousands of pounds of food to distribute during the week, and I'm wishing that those who have never experienced this could take a peek at what I'm seeing and hearing. What a beautiful, crazy mix of people and sounds and stories and sights.

Smack in the middle of the warehouse are  the musicians. There is no stage, no platform, just an array of amps, monitors, speakers, singers, and instrumentalists gathered in a circle--some sitting, some standing. There are five guitars of various kinds, a jimbe, a drum set, and a mother-daughter pair at the mics. Others sing as well, and often it's impossible to tell the voices apart, especially when the song takes off "on its own," so to speak--on some musical bunny trail that last fifteen minutes or so before wandering back to its original form. The lighting consists of only a collection of white Christmas bulbs and string lighting like you buy at the hardware store.

Around the center hub are chairs, and blankets on the floor. Some people sit, some stand, some wander out to the coffee pots in the foyer. Nearly everyone wears a jacket--it's a concrete-floored warehouse, after all. We are in our twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, and sixties. We are black, white, asian, and hispanic. We are strong, and we're broken. We're in love with God, and we're asking questions about His existence. At least two of us are alcoholics; a couple of us are struggling with cancer. A few of us have had multiple marriages. Several of us are homeless. Some of us wrestle with emotional problems. We belongs to lots of different churches/denominations. The common thread is only that we're furiously loved by Jesus and that we're looking for Him tonight. 

There is virtually no distinction between singers and participants, between young and old, between those who sit with their backs against boxes of canned goods and those who stand with arms lifted, or between one song and the next. I can't imagine anyone, from the king to the addict to Jesus Himself (Lord, that's our prayer!) who wouldn't fit in right here, right now; and therefore we're surely experiencing a slice of heaven, right here, right now.     

A Good Night's Sleep

At Thursday Cafe tonight, as I was passing out goodie bags, I noticed a man--probably in his early forties--whom I haven't seen for awhile. All our homeless folks get a goodie bag, but I couldn't remember what his living situation was, so I asked him, "Have you got a roof over your head?"

"No ma'am," he answered as he tilted his head toward the back of a particular building, "I'm actually staying behind there." Then he added, "But guess what? I've got an interview tomorrow!" He was practically giddy with pride and relief. He'd been hunting relentlessly for work. "I've been going to Labor Ready to get whatever work I could," he said. "Yesterday, I worked my fingers to the bone!" He held up his hands, and I saw that he was only slightly exaggerating: the tips of all his fingers were raw, the top layer of skin completely gone, like when you work till you've got blisters, and then you work some more, and the blisters burst.

He explained that he'd be getting as much as thirteen dollars an hour at his new job. "Maybe I'll be off the street soon!" I told him how happy I was for him, and as I handed him a goodie bag, I noticed he was rubbing his bare arms.This last week or so, the air has had far too much bite it in for September in Tennessee. "Have you got anything like a jacket?" he asked. "It's supposed to get down in the forties tonight."

"In fact, I do," I said, "but I've gotta go back to the Manna House to get it, so hang tight."

I don't know what this man's story is--but I know what I saw: that he'd worked his hands raw in an attempt to do whatever he could to make it, to move forward. He needed a good night's sleep, and that meant he needed to be warm. And so I would have done just about anything at that point to make sure he didn't spend the night in misery, shivering against the cold, but all I had to do was run back to the Manna House, where we have some provisions left over from last winter. I was able to dig up a sleeping bag, a pair of combat boots, a hooded jacket, and a flashlight. A few minutes later I was back at the Cafe, and I gave him the loot. He thanked me profusely, and then he thanked me again. It was a joy and an honor to be able to bless him. This is just what we do at Manna Cafe, but there's nothing quite like it.

"The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sister of mine, you did for me.'" 

How to Make a New Friend

It’s amazing what happens sometimes when you call someone by name, especially when he/she is used to being overlooked or even avoided. Our name represents who we are and the fact that we’re separate from the next person. Remembering someone’s name lets him/her know that he/she is worth remembering.

A few years ago, when Kenny and I were making weekly trips into Nashville's Tent City (the sprawling homeless camp under a major interstate exchange), we met a man named Tucker. He lived right at the river’s edge. He wore a leather hat and was sporting a puffy, purple eye, the result of a fight with another man. He was middle-aged, and I could tell he’d been handsome at one time. We chatted with him for a few minutes, gave him some bagels, and moved on.

The next week, when we returned to Tent City, we saw him again as he was trekking down a path from one part of the camp to another. “Hi, Tucker,” I said.

Tucker stopped in his tracks and stared at me. For an instant, I wondered if I’d said something wrong, but how could that be? Finally, he responded, “That’s my name.” He wasn't being silly: none of this “that’s-my-name-don’t-wear-it-out” stuff. Rather, he was taken aback. He had a name, and someone had made note of it. From that day on, we had a good friend in Tucker.

One afternoon months later, I was in Tent City with my friend Debbie. (I wouldn’t recommend visiting homeless camps without a man in tow, but this was an exception due to the fact that Kenny was unavailable and Debbie is a veteran in this type of ministry.) As we made our way through camp, we met a man by the name of Donny. He was rough around the edges, to put it mildly. As we spoke to him and a handful of others, a young woman named Sarah sidled up to me and whispered in my ear, cautioning me to be very careful around Donny. Tucker, who was part of the crowd, overheard her warning. “Ain’t nobody gonna hurt Miss Vicki,” he said.

Tent City was not the safest place to hang out, but Tucker’s meaning was clear: no one was going to hurt me if he had anything to say about it. I can’t prove it, but I suspect that his sense of responsibility was directly related to that first time I called him by name.

It can be intimidating to approach a homeless individual. Sometimes they’re tidy, friendly, and accessible, but let’s face it, we’ve all encountered the person on the park bench who a) has clearly gone a few weeks without a bath, b) reeks of alcohol, c) is talking to no one in particular, or d) all the above. Still, I'll bet you've felt that internal nudge: Don’t pass him/her by. Say something. Give him/her a moment of your time. So here’s my challenge to you: Don’t assume that you’ve got to rehabilitate, evangelize, or otherwise transform this person. Just say, “Hey, there. What’s your name?” In eleven years of meeting new homeless folks, I have yet to be reproached for asking a person’s name. It’s simple, but it works. (That’s why children use it as an opening question all the time.) It opens a door. The next time you see this person, you can say, “Hi, Joe. How are you doing?” See if he doesn’t tell you.

Giving Back

Today I stumbled across something I jotted down back in November after a Community Breakfast. Here's the gist:

This morning, a couple named Sarah and Mike came through the line like everyone else, but I noticed right away that something was amiss. Something didn't quite "fit".... She, especially, was one contradiction after another: Her demeanour was tired and worn, and yet she was quick to smile; she was clearly hungry, and yet she had neatly clipped and styled hair, manicured nails, and perfect make-up, i.e. the overall look of someone who has money. For a moment, I mistook her for a new volunteer, but then she began thanking me for the free hot meal. We started talking, and she told me her story.

Sarah and her husband both lost their jobs at roughly the same time. Soon, their savings were gone; and then their car engine blew. They hit bottom about two months ago, and now they're living at the Salvation Army. She was a realtor for 13 years. Now she works at McDonald's.

The American dream blew up in Mike and Sarah's face. Just a short time ago, she was selling real estate. I can picture her leading potential buyers through spacious kitchens and plush bonus rooms, her heels clicking on the shiny wood floors. Now she's homeless. And yet she still has hope. "When we get back on our feet," she told me, "We're going to give back." She admitted that she's still in shock, but trying to have a good attitude. Somehow, she's aware that there may be more to the situation than her immediate crisis. "I've come to the conclusion that God wanted me to see and feel and experience how other people live."

Though it's been eight months, I never saw Sarah and Mike after that day. I'm amazed by her spirit, and I pray that she and Mike were able to get back on their feet and that she'll soon be giving back, just as she promised. I wish the best for this pretty, bone-weary woman who served to remind me that pain isn't wasted when we emerge from it ready and willing to give back.