Agape Fish Fund partners with local churches and volunteers to provide meals, supplies, and Christian support for the homeless in San Jose, California. This fall, not only did we help with the big Thanksgiving event for the homeless at Forager, but we also continued with our regular visits to the encampments. On a typical Saturday, we have about 15 volunteers going to serve about 8-10 homeless people. We’ve distributed tire repair kits, water, canned foods with crackers, socks, and shoes. These supplies have provided the homeless with basic necessities to get by on a day to day basis. This kind of service provides new volunteers with the experience of interacting with people who are homeless. It allows people to talk with them on a personal level and understand the conditions that they go through on a daily basis.
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Agape Fish Fund partners with local churches and volunteers to provide meals, supplies, and Christian support for the homeless in San Jose, California. This Thanksgiving, the unhoused community in San Jose, California, didn’t have to forage for food. Instead, they were invited to a feast hosted at Forager. Connecting the CommunityThe Friendsgiving event, officially called "Giving Thanks in the Valley of the Hearts Delight," was an idea concocted by Forager’s Heinz Jones and John Kim. Heinz graciously opened up the Forager lounge to different homeless populations within San Jose.
The purpose of the event was to share a meal with individuals who are currently living unhoused, with the intent of giving them back a sense of dignity and connection to the community. “Our hope was to not only send a bit of love to our homeless friends, but also to bring awareness to their struggles, and to connect them with the appropriate resources,” shared one of the event coordinators. An event like this certainly brought the community together. It was a joint effort with Pastor Scott and Larry Johnson from CHAM, Justin Immamura with Trash Punx, Forager’s staff, and South Bay Church. South Bay Church, which is an Agape Fish Fund partner in homeless ministry, provided leaders to help coordinate, supplies to be donated, and volunteers to serve. Nancy Nguyen, Founder & President of Agape Fish Fund, shares the true story of her uncle. This personal experience led to her family developing a heart for homeless ministry. Agape Fish Fund partners with local churches and volunteers to provide meals, supplies, and Christian support for the homeless in San Jose, California. VIETNAM REFUGEESIn 1990, my family members were refugees after the Vietnam War and were part of the U.S. Orderly Departure Program (ODP). Gratefully, my father’s older brother, who was already living in the U.S., helped us with all the paperwork and signed to take responsibility for our immigration and transition to the United States. He was a handsome, well-to-do engineer. If it weren’t for my uncle, my family wouldn’t have been able to come to America.
This uncle was in the process of doing the extensive paperwork for our family and had to travel to Vietnam. Sadly, before the paperwork was finalized, his wife who was in the States took his multiple businesses and house assets and then divorced him. As if that wasn’t enough, my uncle later had the same experience happen in succession with two more wives. It was easy for him to find beautiful women to marry due to his good looks. But then they ended up taking everything of his and divorcing him. This tragic pattern deeply affected my uncle mentally and he went missing for many years. Agape Fish intern Emma Cockerell wrote this article reflection and recap on What the Homelessness Crisis in Asian-American Communities Reveals About Ourselves, published on June 5, 2017. The terms Asian-American and homeless don’t regularly go together, as San Francisco State University professor Russell Jeung points out.
But despite common belief, many Asian-American immigrants escaping war and poverty at home face homelessness in America. For Jeung’s neighbor Jimmy, being without permanent shelter is a sacrifice to make higher education possible. Jimmy attends SFSU and lives out of his car, cleaning himself with hydrogen peroxide and at times resorting to sneaking a rice cooker into his university’s library. Jeung has two other neighbors, Sonny and Mary, who have faced housing challenges. For them, displacement and lack of a home are also sacrifices that serve a larger purpose; a momentary discomfort that allows greater convenience for their family. Jeung urges those more well-off to love and identify with their homeless neighbors, rather than blaming the societal forces that allow for homelessness. He believes that “we, too, are foreigners and exiles to this world,” and that the impetus is on the individual to seek God’s righteousness with mankind, regardless of status or monetary wealth. Street Life Ministries provides warm meals and fellowship for the homeless in Redwood City, California. meals servedMessage from Pastor David
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