Day 3: The Beacon and Open Door

Today was a busy day, though perhaps not quite as packed as yesterday. Our first shift was at The Beacon, a center across the street from CCC that provides various services to homeless citizens. The Beacon is open 5 days a week, taking a break on Wednesday and Thursday for preparations and maintenance. When we arrived, we split into 3 groups and separated out into jobs: laundry, kitchen, and window washing. Laundry folks folded towels, rags and clothes for the center and for the visitors. Kitchen duty involved food prep for tomorrow (we'll actually be going back tomorrow afternoon to serve lunch), and window washing, of course, involved washing the windows. I actually got pictures of us working at this one! I also know there's at least one picture of me floating around with a hair net and apron... who knows when it will surface? However, we worked so quickly that we finished our work rather ahead of schedule and ended up with nothing else to do but head back to HQ a little early. Some of us discussed the strange frustration of knowing there is work to be done in the big sense of the problem, but no tasks to actually do. It can be difficult to want to help but to not have a solution.

After lunch, we went to a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center called the Open Door Mission. We worked in the kitchen to prepare an early dinner for the folks there. Food prep = more hair nets for everyone! We served the meal out on the basketball court, and everyone there was immensely grateful and very polite towards us. We didn't get to learn too much about the organization because apparently there was a perfect storm of scheduling involving a program graduation, filming a commercial, and a board of directors' meeting. Still, it was clearly a strong community that we served today, and it was wonderful to see that.

To conclude the ongoing debate between the interns and us about Houston v. Austin food, we ate dinner at a taco place a few stops down the train. Many "this is good but not as good as Torchy's" comments were suppressed when our food finally arrived, and those who dared to try the dessert tacos gave the rest of us wimps the feeling we should have been a touch braver.

Tomorrow is our last full work day, after which we'll jump in the van and trudge through Houston traffic to get back home. We'll see you all back at the church!

~Matt

Taylor rockin some chicken in the kitchen!

Hair nets at the ready.

Noah swiftly swiping inside walls at the Beacon.

Laundry crew!

End of Day 2

Winding down back at Christ Church Cathedral right now. Can't believe it's the same day as when we woke up! 5:15 was pretty early for us, but we trudged out of beds and into our clothes without too much complaint (perhaps too tired to complain?). We took the 6am train to Palmer Episcopal Church, where an organization called The Way Station has been operating for over 40 years. This group serves breakfast to about 350 homeless men and women every weekday, and today we had the opportunity to help make that happen. Some of us prepared food in the kitchen, some prepared hygienic giveaway bags, and others sorted mail (they actually have a great program where participants may use the church address as their own for mail correspondence, making it easier to take advantage of social programs in the area). We had only been working for a couple of hours when the rain came down, and it poured for several hours, past when we were finished. It put a bit of a kink in our day plans, but since we had gotten up so early, it turns out most people were happy to rest and nap back at the cathedral till lunch. I definitely crashed out for an hour--it was lovely.

After making sandwiches for our lunch, we went to the Houston Area Food Bank, where we worked a 4 hour shift inspecting donated food. We lined up along a conveyer belt and checked expiration dates and packaging to be sure that the food being sold was up to health standards. At the end of our shift, we learned--much to our surprise--that, along with the other volunteers, we had moved 10,000 pounds of food that day, amounting to 8,000 meals for low-income families. That's quite a haul! Amazing that it didn't even feel like too much labor.

For dinner we walked down to Niko Niko, a Greek restaurant in downtown Houston. We ate wraps, then came back to the cathedral where we've been relaxing and are now watching the great epic, The Land Before Time. I think tonight might be an earlyish bedtime, as I think we're still reeling from our early morning. Thankfully, we get to "sleep in" till 8 tomorrow!

~Matt

PS - No pictures of us working yet! Didn't want to make a photo-op out of serving breakfast, and the Food Bank made us giev up our phones and cameras before going into the warehouse. Still, a few pics here and there:

Dinner at Niko Niko

Breakfast of champions!

Main rec room at the cathedral

Arrived in Houston, safe and sound

We pulled into Houston today a little bit before 7--turns out traffic getting out of Austin was a little more sluggish than anticipated. No worries, though, our hosts have been very flexible and friendly so far. We met Ben and Frances, both in their freshman year of college, who are CUSE interns this summer and will be helping us in our activities this week. For dinner, they led us over to a place called Bombay Pizza, which had (as you might guess) Indian pizza. None of us had ever eaten anything like it before, but *almost* all of us really enjoyed it (ha)! When we got back to the cathedral where we are staying, Frances led a short presentation on the basics of urban poverty, both causes and characteristics, and linked it into some of the text of our baptismal covenant, really making it clear that we're here as part of our commitment as Christians. It set a good tone for the next few days.

We also discovered Rock Band (the Xbox game), so some folks are jamming to Bon Jovi right now. It's just about bedtime, though, since we're getting up at 5:15 tomorrow morning... phew! I'll post up pictures tomorrow night of our adventures.

Till then, God's peace, y'all!

~Matt