Lives Transformed at St. Anthony's Kitchen
Fr. Jim Bok, OFM, pastor of Mary, Gate of Heaven Church
sends this update from Negril, Jamaica.
Christmas at “The Kitchen” is quite the gathering. Normal operations have us serving breakfast to about 50 children each morning as they head off to school (20 of them on Josey, our school bus) and then putting out around 140 meals at lunch, Monday through Friday. The Christmas party is different. On December 20 St. Anthony’s Kitchen hosted its 4th Christmas party complete with Santa Claus and Christmas carols blaring from a speaker mounted on the friary pick-up truck. School is out, visitors have come to town and the crowd swells to about 250 people.
A large crowd gathered for the Christmas party
Today they don’t get their meal, eat and leave—they gather, everyone at the same time. The atmosphere is festive as the guests sort-of-patiently wait. A nice meal has been boxed up for everyone including curried goat, a special treat. The local Rotary Club prepares 120 food baskets for families to have a nice meal, including a 1/2 chicken. Gift bags are prepared from donated items collected during the year—one for every child. Efforts to organize the distribution and avoid chaos, while not perfect, are…well, improving.
This Christmas party had a special twist. Through our Get Kids to School (GKTS) program we sponsor 45 children, assisting parents with taxi fare, lunch money, and start of school expenses like uniforms, shoes and school supplies. On the first day of school, during breakfast, I told the kids that anyone who went to school every day, perfect attendance, until the Christmas break, “I’ll give you a new bicycle!” That got them buzzing! Joan, who oversees the program, and I figured we’d have one or two children who might accomplish this.
Richard Ramey plays Santa Claus
Joan called me at the end of the term, “I have good news and bad news. The good news is we have nine kids with perfect attendance. The bad news is you have to buy nine bicycles.” Well that’s the best bad news I’ve heard in years. We were ecstatic! The kids were thrilled! Gifford got his bike but didn’t know how to ride it. That’s in process. For the rest of the school year we have implemented a point system based on attendance, behavior, effort and so on. More prizes—perhaps bribes—are in store!
We are feeding more than hungry bellies. Lives are being transformed. And we do much more than the Kitchen and GKTS. The Catholic Church is small but well known for its kindness and concern for the poor of the community. It happens because of Santa Claus and many others who support the Franciscan Friars in their ministry. (Richard Ramey, Santa Claus, and his wife Rhonda are regular Christmas visitors to Negril, heard about the work of our church, visited us and have been great friends since.)
Thanks to all of our benefactors. We pray for you all the time!
--Fadder Jimaica
Students with perfect attendance and good grades in school earned a new bicycle.
Posted in: Advent and Christmas, Missions, Prayer, Saint Anthony
