Feeding Her Soul With Companionship
Every morning at 8:00, 91-year-old Kochana shows up at the Fellowship - supported Mana Hama soup kitchen in Ashdod - even though lunch isn’t served until noon...
Every morning at 8:00, 91-year-old Kochana shows up at the Fellowship - supported Mana Hama soup kitchen in Ashdod - even though lunch isn’t served until noon.
“We open early,” says Emanuel, who manages the soup kitchen. “This place is much more than a soup kitchen. This is where the elderly come to socialize and share their remaining years with people who they relate to.”
The soup kitchen is such an important part of Kochana’s life. “I come here for food, but also to fill the void of loneliness,” she says. “I meet with friends every morning. We sit and drink coffee, we play cards, we sew, and, most important, we pass our time together.”
Growing up in the former Soviet Union (FSU), Kochana knew more than her share of suffering. “Food was always scarce during World War II. We were always hungry.” She wipes a tear from her face. “My family and I fled from town to town to save our lives. We never rested.”
She also had to hide her Jewish identity. Even after the war, anti-Semitism remained a very real - and sometimes deadly - threat in the FSU. During the years of oppressive communist rule, being openly Jewish was punishable by imprisonment.
When Kochana finally was able to come to Israel, she felt so privileged and proud. But then she fell into poverty. Today, like many other elderly people in this neighbourhood, she lives in a tiny, dilapidated one-room apartment, and can seldom put food on the table. She struggles with loneliness and isolation.
Thank God, the Fellowship-supported soup kitchen not only provides for her material needs - it feeds her soul with companionship, conversation, and compassion.
“The soup kitchen is what’s keeping me alive,” Kochana says. Friends, please give this gift of life to elderly, impoverished Israelis, like Kochana, through a gift to The Fellowship’s Guardians of Israel program. And may God bless you, even as you have blessed His people.
