Report from Ohio, USA
[Ohio, USA]To convey Master's care for the less fortunate in the Cincinnati area during the holiday season, fellow initiates from Ohio and neighboring Midwestern states recently took part in a homeless relief project. The activity, which has now become an annual event, took place on the first weekend of January 2003.
At a homeless shelter in Cincinnati, Ohio, working staff members prepare to serve a luncheon meal. Under Master's compassionate gaze, shelter residents happily consume the vegetarian food served by disciples. With the weather being cold in Ohio in early January, we hoped to give quality sweatshirts as gifts to the homeless. Fortunately, a sister was able to obtain 250 sweatshirts at wholesale prices, which saved local initiates much expense. Another sister was in charge of purchasing several hundred sandwich buns for the project, and when she went to a store to buy them, the manager wondered why she wanted so many. After hearing that she was purchasing them for the homeless, the manager offered to give her the buns free of charge.
Then on January 4, 2003, after an early morning group meditation session, fellow initiates traveled from the Ohio Center to a homeless shelter in downtown Cincinnati, where the residents were very happy to see us. After the initiates had set up many large trays of food, people began forming a line so that each person could receive his or her luncheon meal. During the next two hours, several hundred vegetarian "sloppy joe" sandwiches were prepared and served, along with homemade vegetarian egg rolls, salad, fruit and soda. The gift table stood at the end of the food service line, and was filled with piles of sweatshirts. We also placed a large portrait of Master near the table. Many people stopped to gaze at Her picture and ask questions about our meditation method.
One older homeless man was so touched by Master's care that he gave one of our sisters a poem about compassion and love that had been published in a magazine. He said that although he could not express himself well verbally, he wanted to at least give us the poem. He then pointed to our initiates, saying that we were people who have compassion and love, and we were very touched by his words of appreciation.
The Master power that we were able to share during the 2003 New Year's homeless relief project brought much love and joy to the faces of the less fortunate during the holiday season. We are continually amazed at how Master makes everything so perfect, as this project went very smoothly and successfully, from beginning to end, showing that Master is always with us and arranges everything. We need only observe and bear witness to Her miracles each day of our lives!
