The Super Bowl party

All kinds of conversations are held while folks are in line be served at the Mercy House. Sports is a big topic and so, whatever happens to be going on in the sports world at the time often gets brought up. One time we were talking about a game and I asked if they had been able to see it. They said yeah, they had a little TV in the Mercy House. Next time I went inside there I made it a point to look and see what their TV setup was. "Setup" is probably being generous. They've had a small 14" b&w TV. with a couple of folding chairs in front of it. It stuck in my mind and on the way back to the church i started thinking about the Super Bowl, and how everybody watches, even if you're not a fan of the teams or the sport itself, and I thought about the guys at the Mercy House. I figured they would probably like to watch it on something bigger than what they had.


Well, the youth group always has a Super Bowl party and that's fun. But they have it at different people's homes and I didn't see taking the guys to that as workable option. Then it hit me. If the youth are at someone's home for the party, nobody would be using the youth room downtown....and guess what's in there? A BIG HONKING TV! The exact opposite of what the Mercy House had! So....Super Bowl Party for the Homeless at the Church! WHOOO-HOOOOO!



I got permission from Jim to have it at the church in the youth room. I got permission from the Mercy House staff to pick them up in the small church bus and bring them back when it was over. The only concern was they would get back late and some guys would already be asleep, so they were going to have to be very quiet when they got back. On the Tuesday before the game we told the guys what we were going to do . Several said they would come.



We had a ton of food for them that night. We had some ribs and we cooked burgers and people brought appetizer stuff- we had too much but it was good. We wound up with about 20 guys in there watching the game. Most of them were very quiet, even when I tried to get loud and show them it was all right to yell and scream for their team.



Helping was Bryan Campbell, Jim Morgan, Laine and Gary Mcknight, Tammy Pruden, Robin Barrington, me and somebody else I can't think of right now. It might've been Craig.

It turned out to be a great time. The guys were very appreciative of it. We did the same thing for the NCAA basketball final a few months later. had about 20 guys show up and just dialed back on the heavy food.

A couple of times over the summer and fall some of the guys started asking if we were going to do it again this year. We said sure and they started talking about it to the other guys and saying how much they liked it last year. We got permission again from the church and the Mercy House again to do it.

This year's Super Bowl was even better than last years. First of all, the game was better. Secondly, we adjusted on the food and had less, but just as good. We had a big pot of "This time Only Chili"( cause I never remember how I made it last time), cornbread, chips and dips, and Weiners wrapped in Bacon with Brown Sugar. ( Next year that might be the only thing we serve. Laine made a pretty good sized batch this year and the were gone before everyone got through the line. They're so good it's not even funny. They're even good when I make 'em)

And thirdly, we had about 30 guys show up and they were louder and more into it this year. Between them and the folks helping, the room was comfortably full. There were more Giants fans than there were Patriots fans, though. That struck me as odd for some reason.

We'll do it again for this year's NCAA Championship basketball game. Anyone who wants to come watch it with us is welcome. Heck, there's not all that much to do as far as helping, so you'll get to watch the game.

Tom Hodges and I have even talked about watching a NASCAR race one Sunday with them. That'd be kinda cool.

I'm done. I just wanted to give testimony about a couple of things that happened below the radar that glorified God and His Kingdom.

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