What's Cooking for 3-27-2010

Served up biscuits and gravy this morning at Corpus shelter and below is the menu for this Saturday. Look forward to seeing all of you down there again this week. What an awesome group of people we have who come down to share themselves and the love of God with people. I am thankful for each and every one of you...true servants who only want to give of themselves.


This weeks menu for Saturday:
Spaghetti
Salad or Green Beans
Garlic Rolls
Desert
Bottled water

HAVE YOU SEEN HEATHER?

A woman yesterday in the park approached me, she handed me a flier and asked if I had seen this woman. I told her I had seen her on the news, but had not seen her in the park. Then I looked in her eyes and her eyes said it all. I asked are you her mother and with tears welling up she said yes. My heart broke for this woman; you could see her heartbreak, pain and love for a daughter she so desperately wanted to find.

I pray that Heather will be returned to family soon and if God lays it on your heart will you also say a prayer for her and her family.

Park Update March 2010

Okay so I haven’t been very good about updating on what is going on at the park, so I am going to make an attempt to do it more often. Will also try and post the menu each week.

We made it thru the winter season and are very much looking forward to warmer weather. During the winter months, the amount of people who where coming dropped, but now that better weather is here we are starting to see out numbers increase again. With that increase we are also seeing a number of new faces. What an opportunity to love on some new people as well as our regulars.

Longer days and warm weather gives us the opportunity spend more time with the people as well as getting back into playing some football again. The guys said they are ready for a game and I found the football.

I want to thank all of those who come out each week or just when they can. I recently spoke to a couple who now have housing, but continue to come down from time to time, they walk for over a hour to just come down and they say they come for the friendship and love they receive there. This should speak volumes to those who help, what an impact you are making.

A special thanks goes out to:
The Hunter’s and the Haught’s for helping prepare food each week.
All of those you help support us financially.
Keith and Tiffany for bringing down the bus from time to time to give our friends a special treat and the donation of bread.
All the others from Boise and Nampa that come down, jump in where needed or just hangout and love on the people.
What a blessing each and every one of you are and we could not do what we do without you!

I have been rattling around an idea of having an art class in the evenings for the kids from the park. Have a place we can do it and it would be about twice a month. Probably for about an hour or two, it is still in the thought process, but if you have any ideas or input, please let me know.

Also thinking of doing something special for Easter. If you have any ideas, toss them my way.

This week’s menu:
Barbecue Chicken
Salads
Deviled eggs
Desert

Needs:Please continue to pray for those in the park as well as those coming to serve. May we be a reflection of Christ and a witness to those you do not know him.
Donations of food or financial help to obtain food
Socks
Sunscreen
Would like to obtain some more tablecloths, if you know where I can get some cheap please let me know.

Many of our friends our receiving housing vouchers and will begin the process of moving into new homes. Please pray that these transitions will go easy for them and that the new life they are about to start will be a positive one for them.

May you all be blessed and your cups be over flowing….for you have blessed many!

HIDDEN JEWEL

The winds that blow on the streets have not been kind to him.
The harsh gusts have blown with fierceness and over time have turned his long hair gray. Looking so much older than he is.

Summer sun has turned his skin to leather.
Winkles that surround his eyes reveal the deep valleys he has walked thru.

Cracked, blistered lips are evidence of the bitter cold days of not finding warmth.

His clothes contain the stains of the streets and struggle to survive.
It’s in the crashing waves that you hear his heart screaming to be loved.

But there is more to my friend. He smiles and it ignites a sparkle in the deep ocean blues of his eyes. There hidden deep with in the ocean waters lay his hopes and dreams that are locked away. Then you find it in the deepest depths, on the ocean floor, his hidden treasure box holding the beautiful jewel that he is.

The jewel waiting to be found and brought to the surface, past the crashing waves and on to shore to be revealed to the world.

We just need to love them and to be willing to help them find it, for sometimes they don’t see it for themselves.

DOORS

There are those times when you hear Him speak and He says it’s time to shut the door. You can’t continue on the way things are, but yet if the door shuts you don’t know what to do. Then you are reminded that if you stay faithful to what you are called to do, He will take care of all the needs.

So you stand before the closed door wondering where do I go from here? Then you wait, you pray and continue to listening to His voice and following His direction, even if it makes no sense and the world around you doesn’t understand.


For when you least expect it, He places that key in the next door and He flings it wide open. Blessings begin to rain down and you know that new door is the beginning of a new part of the journey. In the past few years many doors have been shut, shut because in keeping them open would mean straying from God’s calling. But with each shut door I am beginning to not stress and instead rejoice, because I know that if I just wait patiently and remain faithful that new door opens to so much more than the one that was closed! This new door looks exciting and can't wait to see what is on the other side of it!

So stand stong even if those around you don't agree or don't understand, for when He is ready your door will open and your new journey will begin.

Cancer Wont Keep This One Down!--By Julie Cruz

Repost from Julie's Blog: http://www.lifehouseministryoc.com/
Each week Deb faithfully prepares a part of the meal to be served to the homeless. She loads it up and takes it to the local Boise park where she stands in line with about 15 other people dishing out a wonderful warm meal to anyone who wants one. Mostly homeless friends come and enjoy the meal and their company. Deb has become a well known fixture among their friends who live outside. They give her hugs and have given her gifts. Deb has been doing this for several months, working alongside Denie who has been bringing her friends lunch each week for over a year.

We have the same thing here in Orange County and we fight over who gets Deb for that week! Traveling back and forth from Boise to Orange County gives Deb the opportunity to share herself with both homeless communities and they both love her dearly.

At the beginning of the year, Deb found out that after 12 years breast cancer has returned. At this writing Deb is fighting a courageous battle. Her treatment has left her nauseated, tired and with an intense pain in her stomach but she is fighting on because she still has a lot of work to do hanging out with our friends in the park! Even when she was about to start her treatment, she was here in Orange County feeding the homeless and loving on all of our friends. They missed her deeply when she wasn’t there helping in February and I am always hearing them say, “tell her we miss her”. “Tell her we’re praying for her”. She has made a great impact on our friends!

I would ask you all to hold her up in your prayers on a constant basis! She is so loved and adored for the wonderful, generous, real, friend that she is. Pray that the treatment isn’t so harsh on her body but ruthless on the cancer.

We’ll see her again soon serving up a warm and nutritious spoonful of yummy!

She Wanted to Commit Suicide – She Made Me a Keychain Instead-by Julie Cruz

Got the plessure of meeting Julie for the first time, on her recent trip up from California.
Julie with out friends in the park.


She was able to come down and spend time with us at the park and then we had a day when we got to spend a little time together. Our day didn't turn out like we expected. Below is a recent post of of hers about that day. Julie has a ministry in California were she also serves and helps our friends outside. To connect with her or to take a look at what she is doing, check out her website: www.lifehouseministryoc.com


During a recent visit to Boise Idaho a friend and I went shopping at a Army Surplus store for rain ponchos for my homeless friends in Orange County, I was buying them to take back home. While waiting at the register to pay for my find, Denie got a desperate call from a gentleman who runs a day-shelter that she visits ministers in frequently. “You gotta get here right way” he said. “This young girl is talking about taking her life”.

We drove to the shelter as quickly as we could. When we arrived, sitting in the corner was a 21 year old white girl, with a backpack at her feet, a tissue in her hand and tears streaming down her face. We sat down and listened for 3 hours. We both felt that she needed to talk and we needed to listen. She expressed how broken she was – she had just tried meth for the first time in her life and she’d been awake for 2 days. She just needed friends and the ones that she found weren’t the kind of friends who care if you lives or dies. As she continued to talk, we could tell that she began to dig into the farthest corners of her atrophied heart and pull out the root of her pain. When she was 5 years old, she hid under the bed while her mom, dad and sisters were all murdered – she survived… sort of. I would be the farm that she wished that she was with her dead family. We could see that the moment she brought that out of her hidden place, a light began to shine on her face. You really would have had to be watching but the heaviness didnt seem so heavy – her shoulders not so slumped. She talked about being in and out of foster care after the murder. I asked her if any of them were good experiences for her – “not really” she said. Once she became an adult she entered into a variety of different mental health facilities. They have pumped her full of meds trying to stabilize her life – they dont seem to be working too well.

I noticed a delicate hand knotted necklace she was wearing and said something about it. She made it she said very proud – i found out later that this is how she makes her money. I asked her if I bought her some beads would she make one for me before I left. She bent forward unzipped her backpack and pulled out a keychain that she had already made and handed it to me, not looking up at me. Even to this day writing this I cant help but cry – she gave me piece her heart and her creativity as well as her livelihood.

We ran down to the store and bought her a load of beading supplies, hoping she could fit these into her backpack. when we got back to the shelter, she had managed to find a dark place to take a much needed nap but came out to receive her gift with gratitude.

I heard that she is doing well… Denie has seen her at the park. Still homeless – and hopefully not doing drugs. This is one person that I want to be off the streets and engaging in life as it was meant to be – with more joy than sadness. Be safe, be well and be whole little one.