Austin Street Center pauses to remember and give thanks for Jim T., a longtime friend and volunteer who recently passed away. Jim helped to touch lives through providing and serving meals at Austin Street Center.
Jim shared a story of when his church group made a variety of sandwiches to serve at Austin Street Center, and a lady walked away because they didn’t have a pimento cheese sandwich. He brought two dozen pimento cheese sandwiches the next time, and this same lady shared with Jim that she hadn’t eaten that sandwich in years—her mother made them for her when she was a little girl.
“Those pimento cheese sandwiches touched her heart in ways I can’t imagine, and it took no more effort on my part than I would have expended making some other type of sandwich,” said Jim. “I realized that simply being homeless doesn’t mean that you lose your humanity, or forfeit the right to have personal tastes and preferences. And while simply providing food may meet the physical requirements to stay alive, maybe providing something that they really like might help them really live. Since that encounter, I see missions as so much more than the physical activity. I see it as showing God’s love through the physical action and touching someone’s life.”
