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ladies, fresh clothing, gifts, good music and good food and so on. It is a way of saying, “We see you. We recognise you.
We love you!”
Each person who attends a Matthew Lunch is given a brand new Bible with their name written into it. Having been
there myself, I know that those who are genuinely broken and destitute, and even those for whom that way of life has
become a lifestyle, are encouraged for many weeks after having attended one of these events.
The responses I get tell me this, just two of which I will mention here.
I received a call early on a Sunday morning after the 2013 lunch, from a bloke who does sand sculptures on the beach.
He was calling to ask me to please come to the beach that Sunday because he was going to be making sculptures of
the church where the lunch had taken place.
What had happened is that his wife had been one of the guests at the lunch and she had been so overwhelmed by the
love and the hot showers and everything else, she had gone home with food for her husband and told him that she
had thought she was “in heaven”.
This was his humble but very profound way of saying “Thank you”.
After the lunch the following year, 2014, one of the pastors involved, Reverend Jonathan Galant of the West End
Baptist Church, received a Thank You card from one of the guests – a lady who lives in his area.
I was particularly taken by this because it came from a lady who hardly had 2 cents to rub together, living on church
food parcels and so on. She had been so impressed by the lunch – Ken J. Larkin sings at all of them – and her gifts and
the love that is poured out at these lunches, that she took some money and went and bought a Thank You card at a
store, wrote in it, and handed it to Pastor Galant. When Jonathan phoned me to tell me of this there were tears in his
voice – and in mine as he told me how poor this family is and yet this is what they had done.
People blessed all over the city, smiles on faces, love in people’s hearts, eased tensions, albeit for maybe only a day –
all because someone saw a poor destitute man standing outside a restaurant and decided to give him a meal.
Ah yes – the power of giving indeed…
Next week – the R200 note that appeared from nowhere – and the incredible part it played in the Matthew Lunches.
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