A Tiny Little Food Pantry
This week a woman called asking for assistance, with food from our pantry, and asked if it was open. Now, I know that there are a few churches which have large, organized, food pantries with set hours so I inquired if she was perhaps looking for them, but also let her know that we do have a small pantry from which we can help people.
She said she didn’t know anything about that but that she had been given our number and told that we would probably be able to help her. I told her to come on down. She did.
When she arrived it was obvious that she was disabled. With her were her sister and niece, whom she said were homeless and living with her. So, I welcomed them, she filled out the form and we went to the pantry.
As we were talking I pointed out that our pantry only consists of a few shelves in the kitchen storage room. The only sort of “organized” it has is that we try to put things on the shelves in a halfway logical manner. We don’t have a list, or a schedule, or staff or anything, just the donations people bring.
I was curious so I asked her who had given her our name and number. She said I was her church, which she named. I clarified that “her” church didn’t give her any food. This was odd to me because her church is nearly twenty times the size of our church. I found myself wondering why they sent her across town to a tiny church when surely, they could have helped her.
We got her fixed up and the three of them thanked us (you and me). As I waved goodbye to them, I found myself becoming a little bit miffed. I corrected my thinking as, quite often, what I am told by people who are asking for help doesn’t correspond with the truth. Maybe that big church didn’t turn away one of their own. Maybe she doesn’t even attend there. Maybe they helped her out last week, and the week before.
As the thought continued to rummage around in my head something else occurred to me. Not only did we have the privilege of being the hands and feet of Christ to these women, but there was something else. Clear across town, at an extremely large church (which I KNOW does a lot to help people) someone knew the name of Unity Christian Church and knew that we help people in need. They even knew us enough to be able to give them our phone number and tell them how to get help. That, my friends, is pretty neat.
UPDATE: Since writing this I have since learned that the large church’s food pantry has been completely used and they are just trying to find anywhere which can help the people they are needing to turn away.