WARM Week Recap
We just wrapped up our first week of WARM (Wrapping Arms ‘Round Many) at RGBC and God abundantly provided! 14 delicious meals served, 20 cots prepared, Sanctuary teardown and setup, 14 hour monitor shifts overnight, and many prayers! We had 75+ volunteers help serve 15 guests from Sunday, December 7 to Sunday, December 14. We had volunteers serve as young as 4 years old, someone who volunteered on their birthday, others with sick children at home, and some who just plugged into RGBC in the last few months. To see so many die to themselves…their convenience, their time, their sleep, their comfortability…for the sake of the Gospel was moving.
I saw Jesus during WARM through the generous outpouring of everyone! I saw Jesus in Oliver who served food to our guests with a smile. He prayed every night for them to sleep well at the church and is hoping to go help a different church this winter! I saw Jesus in Yasso who humbly shared how God saved him in Egypt , but that also meant being cast from his family home. Our guests listened intently and responded openly to Yasso’s proclamation of God’s goodness even in the valleys. I saw Jesus in the small, kind gestures of caring for our guests’ needs. The care to detail, proactive measures to provide for them, and joyful faces responding to requests meant so much to our 15 guests. They didn’t feel like a burden!
One guests shared, “You don’t know until you don’t have it, just having one person look at you with dignity, in the eyes. It’s nice.” Another shared, these are the “best meals we’ve had all season. It was cool to have others want to stick around and actually hang with us”. There were many UNO games, a Christmas minute to win it game night, and movie nights.
Our hope was not to do the bare minimum, but show up in a way that reflects how Christ reigns in our lives. It was beautiful to be apart of our His body serving and watching guests open up a bit more each day.
So thank you, thank you, thank you to all who served and prayed. First year in the books was a huge success! Let us continue to lift up those who are homeless in St. Mary’s, whether or not they are apart of the WARM program.
