Mission fun

We were very exciteded to find Crossroads mission. We were looking for a grocery store, so we punched grocery store into the GPS to find the nearest one. The one that was closest sounded like a corner store so we took the 2nd option. We followed the instructions from our very soothing sounding GPS lady. As we followed the road we became aware that the area we were driving through looked more industrial than we had seen untill then. We pulled up to the stop sign and there in front of us was a huge sign that said FOOD DROP OFF -----> Beside the sign was another sign that said CROSSROADS MISSION. Well that was a pretty obvious sign for us. So we gave up on the search for food and followed the signs to the homeless shelter. We parked the car and walked into the shelter. Told them we were ten people that had time and wanted to help. Did they need any? They said they sure did, could we come back tomorrow at 10:30. Of course we could. We also told them we had a bunch of kids sweatshirts. Were there any kids or families around. Well, right up the road was their family shelter and they would love for us to come by and share what we had with the kids. YEAH!!!

We arrived at the shelter at 10:30. The kitchen lady showed us the kitchen and asked if we would like to make some Christmas cookies for their Christmas meals. They usually serve up to 500 people per meal. They had 3 days of Christmas meals to feed all the people who came.

We washed up and spent our time making cookies. We ended up with around 750 sugar cookies. We mixed and rolled and cutout snowmen, hearts and a few others. We sprinkled and made every cookie with love. We talked about the kids who would come and look at all those fun cookies and hopefully they would feel the love that we put into those cookies.

We also stocked the shelves with tin after tin of beans, soup, stew and every other food item that comes in a tin. There shelves were all stocked up and ready for Christmas, when they had so many more people show up.

We met so many great people who either volunteer at the shelter or live there and work during the day in the kitchen. They were all so friendly and made us feel so comfortable even though we had just dropped by.

After leaving the men's shelter, we went over to the family shelter to meet the moms and kids. They were so excited to see us. They had been expecting us and the kids looked like it was Christmas. We went through all the sweatshirts one by one with the kids, fitting each child with 2 warm sweatshirts each. Cindy also had some brand new receiving blankets that a lady had sewn for us to take. They all went to babies and kids in the shelter that needed a blanket of their own. Then we gave them each a leather bracelet craft to make. The colored beads on the bracelet represented the love of Jesus.

I was so sad to leave the kids at the shelter. They had so much fun playing with our kids, taking pictures and hugging and laughing. We met a few of the moms, who had to live in the shelter as they looked for jobs so they could afford a home of their own. We learned about a mom of 1 month old preemie twins that lived in the shelter. She was gone all day looking for work to support her babies, while they stayed in daycare, waiting for her to come back at the end of the day. They are all so full of love and energy. Its hard to imagine having to raise a family in those conditions. But it is so great that they have a safe place to be.