Christmas Day

We started our Christmas day way before sunrise.  My student , Lilly - from Harbin, China, went with us.  We traveled by bus to our destination and then quite a brisk walk to our destination as we wound through the Beijing West train station.  Most of the people sleep in the station.  Lilly is the adorable girl with the pink mask on her face.  We put on our aprons, gloves and masks to begin serving.  The morning was  cold and  the hot porridge must have tasted good.  Each person receives two cups full of porridge - about three cups.  It was very hot to hold. You hold the cup with both hands and say "good luck to you " in Chinese and pour the porridge into their container. Not sure what I ended up saying!  Sad to see the two pots all empty with many more hungry mouths to feed.  We didn't know the helpers names, we didn't speak Chinese but we all shared a bond of love and caring for others.  These people come every day to serve the homeless - 365 days a year. They had to have their pictures taken with us...such sweet people.  A special way to start the celebration of Christmas Day. We were finished within an hour and headed home.  Our hot water had been turned off the day before for repairs so we were happy to find hot water to prepare for church.  A very nice morning.

An empty pot - we hope everyone was full on 2 cups of Congee

Sweet Lilly