A Word from Laura: Celebrating Miriam's Kitchen

Western Friends, 

Each year on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, we at Western celebrate our longstanding partnership with Miriam’s Kitchen. As we get ready for worship this Sunday, I share with you what I shared with folks on Miriam’s staff last week.  

I have always been proud – almost sinfully so - to pastor a church whose building houses Miriam’s Kitchen. This year my pride and gratitude have grown to a new level. 

Here at Western Church, we believe the work of Miriam’s Kitchen is the most faithful use of our space we can imagine. MK does holy work at 24th and G Streets throughout the week: feeding hungry people, helping neighbors find housing and services, and creating a welcoming community where lives are changed.  

This year that includes the plaza outside. Food services that used to happen in the dining room are now in tents. Case management happens in smaller, socially distanced tents in the church courtyard. A trailer of bathrooms sits across from our sanctuary entrance to increase hygiene and ensure accessibility, given that guests can’t use the restrooms downstairs. We’ve worked to provide more electricity to the outdoors, in hopes of creating safe spaces.  

As Western members went to court almost thirty years ago, fighting to preserve their right to express their religious faith, that feeding hungry people at 24th and G was an expression of their religious faith, no one imagined the impact of a pandemic. If they had, knowing the gumption of that group, they would have advocated for a space with state-of-the-art ventilation where close to 200 people could sit down together for a meal while remaining six feet apart. 

Western Church continues to support Miriam’s Kitchen by working to make it possible for MK to have space in Foggy Bottom. We hope to keep building costs for MK’s crucial services as low as possible, so that when our members, friends, or anyone else gives to Miriam’s Kitchen, the bulk of your contribution makes a direct impact on those who need it most. 

Our church has committed to keeping our pandemic usage of the building to a minimum so that it remains as safe as possible for the staff and smaller number of volunteers who remain committed in the midst of the challenges of the pandemic. During this time, church members don’t use the building like we usually do, but we’re prouder than ever that Miriam’s Kitchen does. 

The weeks and months ahead will provide new challenges, I’m sure. I hope you will join me and all of Western Church in giving thanks for and looking for new ways to support the crucial, holy work of Miriam’s Kitchen. 

With thanksgiving, this month and always,
Laura