I had a GREAT first-time experience at Room in the Inn last night!
RITI is a nonprofit organization that connects those without housing to comfortable, safe places to stay for a night at partner churches. If there are more guests than there are spots at the partner churches, a lottery system is used. I have tried to get in before, but haven’t made it past the lottery.
Saturday nights, I’ve heard, are good nights to try to get in RITI because there is a church that takes men only. So yesterday afternoon about 4 I went to the RITI headquarters at First Presbyterian Church on Poplar and threw my name in the hat.
This time my luck held up. There were 14 spots for men and only 13 showed up. At 5 PM I got on a bus to Emmanuel United Methodist in Germantown.
They had beds set up for us in the church gym – real beds, not cots. They also had dinner tables set up in the gym. We put our things down on our beds and then sat at the table for dinner. There was fried chicken, cornbread, cabbage, pinto beans and neckbones, and mac & cheese. For dessert, I had cherry cobbler with vanilla ice cream.
After dinner, guests could take advantage of a shower, a clothes closet, and Wi-Fi. I chose to go straight to bed and got 10 fantastic hours of sleep. In the morning there were breakfast sandwiches and Ziploc gallon to-go bags with lunches for us. They dropped us off Downtown at 7 this morning. They gave each of us a day-long bus pass for today.
Best of all, not one person from Emmanuel preached to us. They didn’t tell us about Jesus’ love. They DEMONSTRATED it through their actions.
I’m going to try RITI again tonight, when they will have a different men–only partner church. Then on Monday, back to the Mission. Or tonight, if my lottery luck runs out.
News tidbit I picked up while out there: Starting November 16, all of MATA’s services will be free for 90 days.
Book recommendation engine: book.sv
We made hand turkeys at Bardog yesterday. If you look carefully, you should have no trouble figuring out which one’s mine.
Back tomorrow with more news.
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