Fresh Start to a New Year in Kansas City
As the Sai Youth of Kansas and their journey of transformation turned the corner into the New Year, they set their sights higher - more meals served, more communities impacted, more souls transformed. Bhagawan’s goal for each region - to serve 1 million meals - rang clear in their minds and it was not long before the work began.
While serving a particularly downtrodden community during the Christmas "Spread the Warmth" activity, some of the youth came across a building, which happened to host three different church groups and also provide housing for volunteers who helped the church with maintenance and upkeep.
One of the Bible study teachers had gotten acquainted with the youth and invited them back during a service. Just a few short weeks later, the youth - including one youth who was at the shelter and is now getting back on her feet, staying at her own apartment - made plans to serve lunch after a Sunday service. They found out that there were roughly 20-25 people who attend on average, with many of them living on the streets. With that in mind, the youth gathered in the morning to get hot food and groceries for them to take back, including bananas and apples, hot chocolate, Gatorade, muffins and fresh bread-sticks and pizza.
The gracious congregation came up, one after another, to help themselves and thank the youth personally. The pastor and his wife spent an hour over lunch sharing their own miraculous stories. They showed the youth around the facility - a beacon of light in the community - and eagerly described their plans for further expansion. The extraordinary circumstances which most of the souls there had experienced, or were still experiencing, was very apparent in their voices. All eyes lit up as plans to work and grow this community together were thrown around. They reasoned: "We're in this for the long-haul, so let's start small and see what happens." They agreed, and proceeded to clean up and exchange contact information, knowing full well, Divine plans were already made and this was just the first step. The youth left the church and distributed a few leftover pizzas around the community. As they closed out another refreshing service activity and headed back home, they thanked Bhagawan for putting them in a position to be on the ground level of such huge transformations. It is no doubt a blessing for the ages!
