What Happens to the Ones Tel Aviv Stopped Counting?

Last Sunday we made fasulio. Bean stew and rice, simple and filling, and the kitchen filled up the way it does when word gets around that there is a hot meal and a place to sit without being moved on.

Pastor Ronnie from House of Salvation came and sat with people one by one. He and Abraham spent a long time at the table together, talking about God and about rehab. Abraham had believed before, had given his life to God at some point in the past. Ronnie did not rush it. He stayed at the table and let the conversation go where it needed to go.

Ronnie also sat with Dimitri and spent time ministering to him. The kitchen made room for that kind of conversation too.

Someone else came in that afternoon and was not easy to be around at first. He was aggressive, but was answered with patience and eventually settled. By the time we were ready to leave, he had fallen asleep on the chairs by the window. We left him there. His stomach was full and he felt safe, and that was reason enough to stay until he was ready.

Malika came in too. We had not seen her in a while. She sat at the table and that alone mattered. There are people who disappear from the kitchen for weeks at a time, and you do not always know why. When they come back, you do not make a fuss. You set a place and you sit with them and show them the love of Christ.

Slava bathed at the basin that day, as others did. A small sink mounted to a white tiled wall is not much, but when you have nowhere else to wash yourself it becomes something else entirely. It becomes dignity. We are still working toward a food truck with two proper showers, because the need is real and a basin was never meant to carry it alone. Until then, the basin keeps doing more than it was built to do.

We also met Lenor, who came with a dog named Mila close beside. Elias sat with Lenor and they talked. The two of them go everywhere together, Lenor and Mila, and we did not ask them to do otherwise. Some people hold on to one thing in this life, and you learn quickly not to come between them and that thing.

The week carried its own weight outside the kitchen. A 500 shekel parking fine in the spot where we have always parked. A break-in the week before that. A rocket the week before that. Our View Ministries stepped in and covered the fine, and we are grateful. We are also honest: we go into next week short on funds, and the need is real.

Elias went out on a night outreach. The streets were full. Many of the women they encountered were working in prostitution, more than you could easily count, and the need for a consistent night presence became clearer with every block they walked. We will let the images speak.

From next week, the soup kitchen moves to Tuesdays.

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