"Doin' good in the 'hood"

this week's trip to ATL was really good...

Last week while I was home, David and Selah met up with Ronald.

Ronald is headed for a program in Arizona this coming week. A ministry in ATL is buying him a bus ticket to head to a transitional housing program of sorts. So they planned to take him out to eat for a mini-goodbye party.

Ronald wanted BBQ so he led the way to the food court at Underground. We had Ronald get whatever he wanted and it was our treat (well. David's...haha). He was really thankful because last Saturday the cops kicked him out of his van with the option of jail instead. So Ronald lost a lot of his contacts because he left the van. He's been staying under the MARTA bridge and had only eaten 3 times in the last week. So...Ronald was very grateful to say the least.

He's pretty excited to head out of ATL. He says the cops are starting to crack down on homeless guys. His friend Dave went to jail for panhandling. He says he's ready for a quieter city with a better shelter system. (Apparantly the ATL Union Rescue Mission has terrible food...)

After eating with Ronald we walked down to George's. This was the first week we've gotten to prep the plates. I dished up about 200ish scoops of mashed potatoes. They didn't run out of food this week. Praise the Lord. I served alongside of Lyndell...the master of plating chicken! He was funny! Also, Stevie was there...he's a really funny guy that knows how the line is supposed to work and made sure Selah and I knew what we were doing!

It's pretty cool to see the homeless take pride in how meals are served (Lyndell and Stevie are there every week making sure plates get the right amount of food and everyone has gloves on)...it's pretty encouraging. Also, George's grandson, about 6 or 7, was out there with his dad (they're not homeless) learning about serving...he was a really cute kid in his baseball uniform handing out plates...

We didn't see Christian or his mom this week. Hopefully that's a good sign that they've gotten some help.

Next week is fall break so we won't be going to Atlanta. The next week after that we are taking Sarah to dinner because she finally got her greencard!

Continue to pray for Ronald and his bus ride to AZ and George's ministry that they'll continue to have enough food to meet the needs of the community.