Last Week at Mercy – (week of 12/6)

Have you ever wondered what a “normal” week at Mercy is like? While I have to say that nothing has seemed exactly “normal” for a while now, there are some things about the Mercy community that remain constant. Even in our creativity, and many adaptations, there are just some things about this community that never change–in a good way! Our constancy is intentional. When things get chaotic, when life is overwhelming, when there are not many people or things you can depend on, it’s good to know that you can rely on your church community to keep showing up for you and to be present to you in the good times and the bad ones too.

So what did this particular week look like for the community?

On Sunday we welcomed our partners and friends from Druid Hills Presbyterian to host a specially prepared breakfast before our outdoor worship service. It was so nice to see these friends now that we no longer share space on a regular basis! We love having visitors!

On Monday we opened in the morning for a hearty breakfast followed by our outdoor clothing closet. We shared a lot of warm coats, gloves, hats, hand-warmers, and sleeping bags as people prepared themselves for the coming cold. After sharing clothes we prayed together and studied scripture (all from the back of Pastor Chad’s truck!) before sharing hot delicious soup and cleaning up.

Tuesday is typically our pastors’ administration day, but it was extra cold this particular morning, so our pastors came out to share hot coffee, grits, and pull out some heaters for the community to warm up a little in the chill! That afternoon our friends from the Church at Ponce and Highland prepared a delicious lunch to be shared–they faithfully do this every single week for us!

On Wednesday we opened early once more for hot breakfast and coffee followed by prayer and bible study too. Our friends from the Harriet Tubman Free Foot Clinic stopped by to share clean warm socks and help us distribute clean shoes to our community members. After sharing a hot lunch, Pastor Lattimore led his Empowerment Group–a recovery focused group that is growing in numbers every week and meets spread out in the parking lot!

On Thursday we shared hot coffee, breakfast, and warm clothing once more with the help of some great volunteers and seminary interns! After music, prayer, and the study of scripture, we shared lunch while we waited for our friends from the Mercy Care street medicine team to stop by and check in with several members of our community.

On Friday, while our pastoral team takes a day off, our friends from Oak Grove United Methodist stopped by with lunch for our community, as they have been faithfully doing for years!

Beautifully Busy

There you have it–just another beautifully busy week at Mercy! Sometimes it feels like our active little community does so much that the weeks all meld together. Yet, I’m thankful for all the little grace-filled moments that make each week memorable too–I’m thankful for the volunteers with their sleeves pulled up, humbly and patiently washing breakfast dishes, for the pastoral conversations that happen between clothing closet and prayer and make all the difference, for the laughter and jokes made over hot coffee even when it is too early and freezing outside–all these things make Mercy what it is. And no matter what happens or how we have to adapt, we’ll keep showing-up for each other, creating simple Christian hospitality where it’s needed the most.

Do you want to get in on a week at Mercy?  Come volunteer and spend some time with our community–we’re currently meeting outdoors, wearing masks, and practicing social distancing, and there are a variety of ways to get involved!

Sleeping Bags for All God’s People

This winter is going to be extremely difficult and cold for our community, please consider a donation of cold weather gear; learn how you can help.

This week was cold–numb-your-extremities, 28-degrees-at-night, people-die-in-this-kind-of-weather cold. Any other year, this week would have been a week that our winter night shelter (a joint venture between Mercy and our partners at St. John’s Lutheran Church) would have been bustling and busy. Volunteers would be cooking and dropping off hot soups for an evening meal, community members would be distributing and sharing warm blankets and mats, your pastors would be working round the clock, and 50-60 beloved and valuable human beings would find a little bit of warmth and safety in a cramped and cozy fellowship hall. 

Winter during a pandemic

As if you haven’t heard this phrase enough—this year is different. Despite many brainstorming sessions and creative thinking, we did not know how to open our freeze shelter as in years past without significantly increasing our community’s risk to Covid19. Though our church community has continued gathering throughout the pandemic (always weighing the cost of multiple health crises at play), it has been with extreme caution. Many of our community members are elderly, others have health conditions that make them particularly vulnerable—and we have already lost someone to the virus. As a church community we are committed to protecting and caring for one another as best as we are able–we know we have to be exceedingly careful with one another. So then what were we to do when we didn’t feel safe coming indoors overnight, but also did not want our beloved friends and neighbors to freeze to death when temperatures drop this winter?

Our solution isn’t perfect and it definitely doesn’t feel like enough for the people we love, but what we decided to do was to equip our community members as best we could with warm winter clothes and sleeping bags rated for sleeping outside in 0 degrees. While the city is providing some emergency shelter indoors, this information is not always well-shared to those who actually need it. When announcements come out online, we try to inform the people we are with day in and day out so that they know what is available. But the truth is many people will still sleep outside. There is not enough shelter this winter to keep everyone safe. As a church, we have a responsibility to do what simple things we can to care for our beloved community. It isn’t the warm indoors—but proper winter gear can help people survive. Our friends at St. John’s Lutheran helped us purchase our first big haul of winter-rated sleeping bags, many of which we passed out this week. While we haven’t been able to gather inside, we’ve also purchased outdoor heaters and have been trying to help people stay warm with extra hot meals and coffee in the early mornings (which is often the coldest time of the day).  

Encouraged by generosity

While our storage space was full of sleeping bags, coats, gloves, and hand warmers earlier this week, I already see our stash diminishing after one week of winter weather, and every day new people show up, having heard that the lawn of St. John’s was someplace to get something to keep you warm. I am encouraged to know that many other churches and individuals continue to collect sleeping bags and warm clothes for us to share—we’ll need them.  

The response from the community has been one of grace. According to our members the sleeping bags work surprisingly well at keeping people warm enough through the night. Despite our limitations this year, the community has been understanding and even grateful. Every winter I am reminded just how much I love my church community and its radical commitment to Christian hospitality. For in the most difficult, longest, coldest nights, we manage to do what we can for one another—simply put, because we love one another. And if you love someone, you want them to be well and warm enough. What we do surely doesn’t ever feel like enough, but we’ll keep showing up to be present to those we love however we can.  I am thankful for that, as well as all the many people who make what we do possible.