Orlando

      Last Tuesday, five friends and I went downtown to feed some of our homeless friends. We spent 60$ on groceries which could feed 80 people. We bought individual bags of chips, Capri Suns, and made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It had been 2 years since I had done this. For the past two years I have been a part of planning potlucks the second Saturday of the month, movie nights, and cooking breakfast to serve at the labor pool’s. It was before the inception of home sweet homeless that I had gone downtown to search for people to feed. From the start, the idea behind HSH was relational. We started with the potluck, and out of the relationships built there we met the needs of our new friends. I have spent the majority of my time working with the individuals who I met at these events trying to meet their needs. We had become accustomed to planned events, but that night we had planned to go back to the early days of PB and J and a good walk around downtown. When we first started passing out sandwiches we would feed 20-30 people so we figured that we could take the extra meals to one of the shelters.

     My experience on Tuesday seemed drastically different from my experiences two years ago. As we started walking downtown, we split into two groups with 25 meals each. I lead my group to the Northeast corner of the park, a spot that usually has 5-10 people at it. We began passing out sandwiches but people kept coming until we passed out all our food. We went back to the jeep to get the rest of the food and ended up feeding 30-40 people at that one spot. The entire group voiced their appreciation for the food. After they were fed we kept walking around the lake to get to the bus stop, gator-park, and the library. At Gator Park we ran into a group of guys who knew a few of my friends who were with me. One of them in particular came up saying, “hey guys we really appreciate all you do. I know you don’t hear that enough.” They smiled, told us stories for a few minutes and we laughed together. They sent us with their blessings and we headed back to the park.

      On the way back I couldn’t help but thinking back three years ago when I first started going down town.  I remember the first homeless person I ever spoke to. His name was Whiskers. He was sitting on the same bench at Gator Park as the guys we just met. I remember he was surprised that we stopped to talk to him. And as I think about what the homeless community looked like back then, I see two main differences; first, there are more homeless people now; secondly, there are more people who are serving and actively loving the homeless. It truly has been a beautiful sight to see our city come together with love. It’s certainly not perfect. But we have come so far. I can see it in the faces of those whom we serve. It’s evident when people put down their cardboard signs to come say hey to a friend. It’s so wonderful to see all of the people interacting at the bible studies and potlucks, and to see the relationships carry over into the rest of the week. It has been such a blessing to my life to watch our city mature, to see our community dream of change and to try to be that change.

 

Sweet Peace.

David

The christmas spirit.

Last night, a few friends and I met at Lake eola to have dinner with our homeless friends. There were about 70 people there. It was an absolute feast. Turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, corn casserole, green been casserole, fruit salad, apples, brownies, donuts, cupcakes, cookies, cold drinks. After everyone was well fed, Jordan played some holiday music for us. It was great to see friends and share a holiday meal with them. As Jordan played I saw an old friend Phil sitting in the back of the crowd.

Phil is in his late 40's. He left for New Jersey about 8 months ago to work construction there. Work up north is seasonal, because of the cold weather and snow they are unable to poor concrete and continue building. He and many others migrate down to Florida for the winter. Hard times awaited him when he arrived. Dan, Phil's close friend, was also back from Kissimmee. The two are having trouble finding work. Its heart breaking, they want nothing more than to find work and get off the streets, but times are tough for everyone. It was very bitter sweet to see him.

We had a ton of food left over. Not wanting to let it waist we headed to the coalition. When we pulled up there were 7 or 8 people sleeping on the sidewalk covered up with blankets and sheets. We drove through the gate and told the guard we had food. He directed us to the kitchen (the back part of the pavilion) all across the campus people laid covered up to sleep for the night. We carried our left over food to the kitchen. As we walked in the back door I raised my eyes to see 300-400 men laying on the concrete floor. Some where passed out asleep. others fixing there "bedding" before they lay down. some were still sitting around talking. I followed the others, we stepped around a few men who were a sleep on the floor and dropped off the food. It was my first time at the pavilion when men were in it getting ready to sleep. A sight my eyes had never seen except for movies. I am still trying to process it. At least they didn't sleep on the streets right?


David Blackwell

Sister Margret

Philly

We made it up here to New Jerusalem late Friday night. Sorry it has taken so long to get a post up about it. Their weekends here are pretty light so we have been checking out the city and hanging out here with Dave, the guy we are staying with. We went to check out the city yesterday then went grocery shopping. We have a pretty laid back day again today, probably drive around again to see the community and city here. Tomorrow we will start observing the program and meeting with the staff.

From what we heard the potluck went well.
Thank you everyone who was there.
Potlucks would not exist without you.

Peace be with you.

David

Washington D.C.

We stopped at this really sweet spot in DC called Bus Boys and Poets. Its a really nice restaurant/coffee shop where the proceeds go to support and Activist book store and education program. Jordan and I ate excellent food and were pretty excited about the place. Then we went to the Book store that is connected to the restaurant and fell in love when we saw the book selection. There were huge sections on Peace keeping, eastern poetry, politics in the middle east, African American studies. If you are ever in DC you should definitely look this place up and check it out.


David

Savannah Ga

Jordan and I are on our way up to Philly to go stay at New Jerusalem and to learn from them. We are supper excited about this trip and are working on some amazing things for next year. We are in Savannah, Ga now. We just stopped for dinner and coffee, then we are on our way to Raliegh, NC. We are sad we will miss the potluck. Our thoughts and prayers are with you.

We will be frequently updating this on this trip and in the future. Keep checking back for futher updates of our learnings and travels.