Homeless Shelter

Last night we spent the afternoon and evening at The City of Refuge, a men's homeless shelter in Idaho Falls.  It was the best way to end a busy week.  I spent the day cooking and baking.  We arrived at 4:00 and got busy setting up chairs, filling water pitchers and getting all the food set out and warmed back up.  I was so proud of my kids!  They all jumped right in to work and didn't even have to be told what to do.  They even organized themselves for the assembly line of filling up the plates.  It was such a great feeling to be lost in helping other people.  We were all happy and enjoyed getting to know the director of the facility and some of the men who had been checked in for the week.  It is a very humble place, as you can tell from the pictures, they don't have much but boy, there was such a great feeling there.  God is watching over these people even though they are struggling through hard times. 

People started coming in around 5:30pm, dinner wasn't served until 6:00.  We couldn't feed anyone early because the director likes to start dinner with a prayer.  By 6:00, only a couple of chairs were empty and you could tell they were hungry!  There was a quite a mix of people, 4 women were there and the rest were men of all ages, the youngest one looked to be about 18 or 19.  One gentleman was excited to let us know that he had just gotten a construction job in Boise and would be moving there next week.  We spoke to another lady about her job doing laundry at the Shilo. Two men were completely deaf, didn't know American Sign Language so we were communicating with them in 'charade' form.  That was fun and I think they had fun with us too.  They kept coming up to the counter where we stood with big toothless grins and two 'thumbs up'!

The funniest part of the night came from Sam.  Bless his heart!  He kind of struggles sometimes when our usual schedule is altered so going down and being in a different atmosphere was a little difficult for him.  He was really stressed about putting potato chips on the plates.  He was nervous before it started and began feeling sick.  He asked me over and over again how to 'do' his assigned job.  I kept trying to reassure him that there was no way he could mess up.  Just before the prayer, he said to us, "Ahhhh! Ughh! this is so complicated, I know now why lunch ladies are so cranky everyday!"  When we got in the car, he said, "Well, that was fun but I know I don't want to be a lunch person when I grow up."

As we drove away, it was sad to see some of the people we had served walking alone on the dark streets, headed to who knows where.  I wished that I had a house a big enough to take them all home.  It was an awesome experience.  I want to thank my friend too, Kristi, who helped out with baking cookies to take, they were delicious and the guys loved them!  The kids want to go back again.  They think it would be cool to serve pizza because homeless people probably don't get to taste pizza too much.  I think we will save up to do just that!