There is a little church that meets in a motel where people without homes live called the Breakfast Together Outreach. Most of the people there are either the working poor or they are “transitional homeless” – they’re either coming off the streets or heading back down to the streets. Many of them have lost hope and have resigned themselves to the fact that they are helpless to change their life.
Every Sunday, we serve breakfast and have a worship service. Our goal is to give them food for their bodies in the form of breakfast and food for their souls in the form of friendship while we telling them about the hope they can have in Jesus and that God has a plan for their lives. This Sunday was extra special since we were also able to impact their dignity with a free haircut provided by a local salon who setup shop at the motel!
Later that day we decided that since Starbucks was no longer willing to donate coffee that we would have to find another way to have coffee available. We decided to take an offering at the service starting next Sunday so that the people attending could have the privilege of helping to buy a coffee pot. The most we’ve ever got in any offering was $12 - we don’t pass an offering basket, we just have a small bucket near the resource table where people can give if they want to. We thought that an offering was the right way to do it even though it would take several months to raise enough money to buy a big coffeemaker.
The very next day, we had generous donation of a beautiful coffee urn. The gift was a much more beautiful coffeemaker than we would have purchased. We all got goose bumps realizing that God had orchestrated all of this. He decided that the folks in the motel not only didn’t need to buy a coffee pot, but that they deserved a really nice one!
We are so grateful. I can tell you that the people at the little church that meets at this motel in Santa Ana will be so blessed by the generosity and especially to hear the story of how God loves them enough to send them a love note in the form of a coffeemaker.
-Ron W.
