Not Only a Warm Place

*This post originally submitted to the blog over at ResCov.org.

Some are hungry, some are cold. Some want a shower, others just a place to rest for a while. But it has become clear that what keeps our guests coming to the Warming Center every Friday evening is the conversation, friendship, and genuine care they engage in with the ResCov community.

One of the ways in which we care for our guests every Friday is by providing a meal. In the past two(ish) yeas of attending ResCov, I have learned that food is one thing that brings us together—we fellowship after church over snacks, schedule meetings around lunches or dinners, meet for coffee to get to know each other better. We intentionally engage in activities like the CSA partnership and Community Meals that help us to think more broadly and deeply about the impact of our eating habit, from field to table. It makes complete sense that food is central to our ministry at the Warming Center, from our own value of it to the need for it that our guests deal with daily.

At the Warming Center I have been challenged to think about food beyond the “normal” cycle that I participate in daily. What happens when a person doesn’t have the resources to gather food from a field or to buy it in a store, or even to prepare some pasta or a hot dog? When does the “starve or steal” dilemma become the pressing tension on a person’s life? How does someone who believes strongly that stealing is wrong negotiate this choice when it truly is life or death on the line? These are not easy questions, and they are not brought up lightly.

Each Friday night members from the ResCov community provide two meals for our guests at the Warming Center. First, a hot dinner—nothing fancy, but maybe the only filling meal our friends will have for a few days. Second, a simple sack lunch as each person is headed out the door. Through these exchanges of meals our community begins to meet this basic need for a few people. We also are invited into the lives of those we share our meals with. Dinner conversations at the Center are often surprising and never the same. We share jokes and stories from life, we talk about politics and sports and hopes and plans. We participate in making a home alongside our guests as we all pitch in to clean up after the meal is over. Food, again, is part of what brings us together.

Last Friday I spent close to an hour after dinner in the kitchen with a woman who routinely comes to the Warming Center. She lives with her husband, who also comes, and with several young men she calls her “babies.” She is the Mama Duck of the group. As we cleared the tables and buffet line from dinner, rinsing and stacking the dishes in the dishwasher, she and I talked about a million things. All I had to do was ask, “Do you miss having a kitchen?” and the conversation steered fully in the direction of how she learned to cook and how much she misses the opportunity to do so. She insisted on spending an hour cleaning up when she was obviously exhausted from her life of constant motion.

As she was preparing to leave for the night, I was thanked for the meal; I said that I would pass her compliments to the chef. She looked a bit confused, and when I explained that people from the church take turns volunteering to provide meals each week, I thought I almost saw tears in her eyes. What seems like such a simple thing when divided amongst our community is helping to ease a very real burden in the lives of our guests. Each bite of food that is offered to our new friends is a strong statement that ResCov cares deeply for each one as a real person, not just another face on the sidewalk.

As originally planned, the Warming Center would only be open during the cold Winter and Spring months, with our final Friday of operation (for this season) to be May 1. Our guests have let us know that they would miss this Warming Center, for the services it provides, but also for the safe, comfortable community they experience each Friday. So, the Warming Center will remain open indefinitely, as long as provision is granted. (And, yes, a name change is in order.)

As we look toward the future of this ministry, we thank God for the many blessings that allow us to meet some of the needs of our new friends. We also look realistically at the continued needs of the Center to remain open, and the largest of these is food. The time and finances it takes to provide meals for 15 very hungry people every Friday is no small task. Over the course of the next few weeks, ResCov will brainstorm and explore ways in which we all can contribute (large and small) to keep the kitchen open (so to speak). We continue this ministry out of the love Christ first showed for us, and we know that the food provided is often the conduit of much more care and respect than just physical sustenance.

*For those of you who don't know, I now volunteer as the "director" of the Center -- for the administrative work of scheduling, donations, and meals.