A few glimpses from the morning at Manna House

A few glimpses from the morning at Manna House.

I was talking with a guest about the weather today. It was a bit warmer than last week, but still there was drizzle and a chill in the air. His response, “I don’t mind the rain. You can find a place to stand out of the rain. You can get out of the rain. You can’t get out of the cold.”
A guest has been praying for several weeks for her “heat to get cut on.” Last week, when the temperatures were plummeting, she found refuge one night at Room in the Inn. But on several other nights there wasn’t enough room at Room in the Inn, and it looked like she wouldn’t have a place to stay. Turns out she did find a place to stay.
She said today, “I sure do like vegan food.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I stayed at that vegan place [Imagine Vegan Café] and they fed us real good.”
Then I heard that when the guests were at Imagine Vegan Café the good people there, Adam and Kristie, had the guests sit at the regular restaurant tables and simply order off of the menu. Whatever the guests ordered they were served. Wonderful hospitality!
Today Reggie patiently worked with this guest, and with MLGW, trying to get to the bottom of why she can’t get her heat cut on. After several phone calls and being transferred around from one “customer service” person to another, Reggie finally got a solid answer. Tomorrow we’ll take this guest to MLGW downtown and get her back bill paid so her heat can get cut on.
We had another volunteer step up last week to get guests sheltered from the cold. Bob told us he had a farm about an hour from Memphis. “I can take six or eight people there for a couple of nights.”
After some conversations with some guests, a small group formed and went with Bob.
On Thursday morning one of the guests who had gone for those two days said to me, “It was really good. We ate and we slept and we didn’t have to get up and go anywhere." Bob, for his part, reported that they all chipped in to prepare the meals, and clean up. When the pipes froze no one complained, he told me, they just melted ice to make water for the coffee.
A guest came in late in the morning and needed a new skull cap.
“This one’s all torn up.”
I found him one which he liked, which he put on. But then I found another, a fancy hat with faux fur ear flaps. He tried it on. “It’s too big. I’ll stay with the other one.”
Another guest standing by saw the one with the ear flaps. “Can I have that one? I don’t have a hat.”
“Yup.”
He left the house ready for the cold to come tonight.