Karol’s Kitchen Update – The Manna Bus Report Dec 4, 2018

Merry Christmas —  Season! I pray that you all are abounding in joy –even in your difficulties! So much happens each week and I get so excited by the wonderful things God does for all of us involved with Josie’s Kitchen. This is Junie… If you have ever been to or lived in Punta Gorda Town, you have seen Junie on the streets. When we moved here in 1973, Junie was a young man. (Well, er we were young too!) I would guess that Junie is about 60 now.  He has lived on the streets most all of his life. He can’t talk but he can make noises and gestures to communicate what he wants. He avoids all eye contact. In this picture I was trying to show him the following picture of he and our youngest grand daughter from about 7 years ago. He wouldn’t look at me or the picture.  He has always behaved like a frightened animal in some ways, he doesn’t trust most people any longer and that is getting worse as he ages and as more mean people are out on the streets. For so many years everyone fed him and treated him kindly. I’m not so sure that is the situation any longer.  He will come for food most days and sits right on the steps (where he sat for many years when our daughter, Aprill had her business there and fed him).   He scarfs his food down and puts his plate up on the counter and scurries off. Junie’s soft spot is that he loves babies!

Here he is 7 years ago when Kairra was a baby. You can see he is looking right into her eyes. He feels safe with babies. He and Kairra would “talk “ every morning while he had his coffee! He did this with all 3 of our grandchildren when they were small.   I love the trust on Kairra’s face, the, acceptance, she doesn’t know or care that Junie is “different,” she adores him. (A powerful lesson for us in becoming like a little child!)

Here is Larry presenting “Cato” with his new push cart so that he can make a living! This is a wonderful story, Cato is the one who was on crack for 27 years and accepted the Lord a year or 2 ago, he has been growing in his faith and his personality is becoming softer and kinder (he was very belligerent before). A friend & supporter gave Larry some money to see if he could figure out a way for Cato to make a living. Larry came up with the idea of the cart for moving groceries etc. around town and the joy it gave Cato was almost annoying! Ha! He was so proud of his “new wheels”, he paraded up and down the street with them. He immediately ran out and made around $15.BZ ($7.50US) and was excited. Since he is homeless, Larry bought a long bicycle chain so that he can chain it up at night or when he needs to leave it for a time. Cato is so excited about his faith that we are constantly trying to ease him a little bit from trying to force people to accept Jesus! What a great problem!     

This is Larry and S. P. actually having a conversation! This man was like a zombie when he first started eating at Josie’s Kitchen. I firmly believe the good food, vitamins, the love and acceptance and God’s Word is healing his mind. I have mentioned before that I read the Bible to the guys every Thursday.  This past week was incredible! We waited until around 7 or 8 were gathered and then I read about Moses.. It was not just me reading to a few bored men, it was a Bible study with hungry men sucking down every word! The Lord gave me some words to say about the story of Moses crossing the Red Sea. At the end of the story, Moses and the people are thanking God for His goodness. I explained that we should be like that and thank God for the good things that He blesses us with.  They were all nodding and agreeing so I said, “let’s just pray and thank God now”, they all agreed and I prayed.  They asked questions and made comments as I was reading , they are starving for the Word of God, like little birds with their mouths open.  One of the guys who was “too cool” to stay and listen a month ago told me how much he enjoyed the story. I think I was floating on air when I left there last week! Please pray that their minds will continue to be healed and their hearts open towards the Lord. Some are not able to mentally understand the Gospel but that is the beautiful thing, we don’t have to understand it, only believe it like a little child!

In October, we were blessed to have the man responsible for getting us the container of food and the bus come. He brought along the youth minister his church who wants to bring a work crew early next year! Also along, was the man and his wife who actually put the bus together making it into a beautiful, functional kitchen.  They all worked for months converting the old 1980 bus into a modern kitchen! We packed up a boat with ~32 boxes of food (thousands of meals) and went across to Guatemala to deliver 12 boxes to the beautiful people from the church who feed the people living or scavenging in the dump about an hour from their church. These hard working, filled with joy women were cooking for 150 people (more or less), twice a month. Then they load the food into their vehicle and hand it out to the people in the dump.  Since we brought them the boxes of food they are now able to feed the people much more often! And much more nutritionally! They had driven an hour to see us with ~6 of them packed into this small SUV, on the way back, they were packed in tighter as the boxes filled the whole back of the vehicle. This is the pastor and his wife (in the coral blouse) and a few of the ladies who cook so lovingly. What a joy it was to spend an hour or so hearing about their work and love for the people at the dump. They told us about how horrible the flies are there and the stench is nauseating… and yet, they are eager, happy, even thrilled to go and feed these folks! Wow!

Here is our group at the children’s home where we delivered 20 more boxes of food for the children. Beto (our son in law), Matt and Debra, Josh, Larry and I, Heather (director at children’s home), and Michael (president of Amigos Internationales”!

We have some plans to make Christmas more fun for a few families and those at Josie’s Kitchen! We are ever thankful for your generosity and know that the Lord Himself will reward you! Thank you for praying!!! God bless you all and have a wonderful Christmas filled with the love and joy of the revelation of God coming in ‘the flesh’! Emmanuel/God with us.

Karol