The church we've been attending lately - and which we really like, btw - has several groups called "Go Teams." The name comes from the church name (come2go). I don't know how many different ones there are, but one ministers at the prison, another works with troubled teens, one goes to nursing homes..... and maybe some more. Well, one makes and serves food to the homeless at the downtown library every other Wednesday night. So that's the one we decided to check out. Last night was our first time.
It seems to be a great group of people serving in this ministry. They ranged in age from early twenties to sixties. Many are a bit on the hippy-ish side. The guy in charge actually looks a lot like Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead during his gray-haired days. They were all super-friendly and made us feel so welcome. I mean, we've been the "new people" at several different churches, and this was by far the best experience we've ever had. It was nice.
Anyway, we started out at the church building putting together sack lunches. They were also making nacho fixin's. Around 7:30 we headed over to the library. We set up several tables with water, coffee, nacho stuff (meat, cheese, tomato, sour cream, salsa, beans, etc.), cookies, and then there was a table with an assortment of shampoo, toothbrushes, deodorant, socks, and things like that.
I take it there are many regulars because people immediately started lining up. It was estimated to be around 70-80 people. They got a drink and a plate of nachos, then when they were done they all got a sack lunch to take with them for later (it had peanut butter sandwiches and snacks). Everyone was super nice and polite. I served the shredded lettuce and sour cream; Jane did the salsa (probably just so she could say "salsa").
I think it lasted just over a half hour, and there were actually a couple people who didn't get anything other than the sack lunch before we ran out of food.
It was a bit odd in that we had seen quite a few of the people before. Most were generally older, and there were a number of women too. One was even pregnant.
So, we did that. It felt good to actually be included in a group and to do something we feel competent at. I think we will probably continue to help out. I guess there are three couples that are there almost all the time, and then several others who come when they can. Hopefully we will be regulars pretty soon.