Hey everybody! (Hey Dr. Nick!).  NYCUP's been awesome lately.  Good conversations both inside and outside the house. A pigeon has taken roost on our stoop, primarily out of necessity, who we have named Nyce (pronounced nike).  He's slowly healing (we're not sure why he's so beat up).  We held a praise night on Friday and a feed 500 event on Saturday.  The weeks are going by really quickly, and it's weird to think that we only have two weeks left, and only a week and half left of our internships.

But that’s not what I’m here to talk about.  Jesus tells his followers to feed those who are hungry in Matthew 25. Since the first day of my internship, I have fed 886 people at the Love Kitchen.  Meaning there's a likely chance that I will have fed 1000 people by the end of this week.  1000 people.  That blows my mind.  If you had told me before NYCUP to feed 1000 people I wouldn't have known where to start.  I would have been stressed or burnt out or drained.  But the Love Kitchen hasn't seemed hard or difficult.  That's just what we do.  It strikes me how easy it was to do.  Justice is easy.  I just did it.  One of the things that got me into justice issues in the first place was the discovery that through charity: water a penny will give someone over three and a half days of water. And that's mind blowing. It's so easy to help people.

Mr. Jones has been at the Love Kitchen for the past 22 years.  He has some cool stories of how much change has occurred in the neighborhood, how there used to be fights and 911 calls.  It's safe now; an inviting environment.  Mr. Jones has seen real change in the lives of the people who come in.  He has genuine relationships with many of those who walk in.  And it hits me again how heartbreaking it must be to see people walk in here in and out, over and over, over the course of years. To recognize that your efforts aren't changing things long term, to see that people are still hungry years later. He's built relationships because people keep coming in day after day, week after week, month after month.  They come in because they don't have food. While I certainly have developed a rapport with the regulars, I know that none of them will be my best friend at the end of six weeks. It's so hard to help people. It requires patience. And while that's a theological struggle that God has already brought me through, working here at NYCUP has made me rerealize just how difficult it is to bring change. Jon Walton likes to say we're not walking for victory but walking in victory. NYCUP has made me reremember that we actually can't do anything, but that Jesus has already redeemed everything and is in fact our partner.

It's easy to help people.  It's hard to help people.  We have to surrender our impatience, frustration, and selves to allow God to truly heal situations, to help restore his shalom.  After all, that’s the goal, right?