A plate of Mexican chicken and rice and greens and cabbage is served at The King’s Soup Kitchen last week at the Hale Park Community Center.

LIVE OAK, Fla. — Two days a week, Sherlen Jones does more than feed the hungry at the Hale Park Community Center.

In addition to providing a much-needed hot meal, Jones is also serving up a heaping helping of love.

“That’s all I want people to see and give me, the love of Christ,” Jones said last week when she received a proclamation from Mayor Frank Davis for her work through The King’s Soup Kitchen. “Christ is love. I want to show mercy and I want to show grace. And I want to show love.”

Jones began The King’s Soup Kitchen in the fall of 2017 after receiving a call from God while visiting her son and his family in Seattle. Looking after her grandchild, Jones started reading her Bible when she got to 1 Kings 17:8 where a widow fed Elijah at the direction of the Lord.

“I couldn’t get that out of my spirit,” Jones said, adding that after her husband passed away she didn’t have anybody to take care of and was bored. “Alright God, that’s what you want me to do.”

Jones wanted to run the soup kitchen five days a week. But again, she said God had other plans. Greg Scott, the Suwannee Parks and Recreation Director, agreed to allow Jones to use the community center two days a week, Mondays and Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

“That wasn’t nobody but God,” she said, noting the two days she is open are exhausting. “I want to do this as much as possible. And I hope and pray that somebody gets on board and catch some of these days. But never the less, I just love what I do.

“I’ve never been this happy in my life. Never.”

And she has found people to help take care of. On average, the soup kitchen feeds more than 100 people each day. Jones said the slowest day the past 19 months has been 85 people. Others it’s more than 120.

Some of those are regulars. Others come and go. Sometimes it may be an entire family.

Regardless, they are all in need of a hot meal, whether they are living in a motel without a place to cook or are homeless or living in a broken down bus.

Normally, there are people waiting when she arrives.

“It’s a need in this community,” she said. “There’s a need.”

It’s a need she fills even though she’s not always sure how she does it. First Baptist Church helps out with items from its food pantry when it receives a surplus of certain foods. Love INC helps supply bread.

Jones also says God regularly answers her prayers to help round out the meals she serves, which could be turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy and green beans like it was last Monday. Or Mexican chicken and rice with greens and cabbage like it was last Wednesday.

“God sustains us,” she said. “And I don’t even know how. It’s just like manna coming from heaven.”

That manna then gets spread through Jones’ gifts — cooking and sharing love, which is changing people. She said one of the regulars told her that through the soup kitchen and watching how Jones treats people, she had started to change her outlook as well.

“She said, ‘You don’t treat nobody no different. You don’t care what kind of person they are, you treat them all the same. You’re growing on me. I’m learning so much from you. I’m learning how to love. I didn’t know how to do that,’” Jones said.

That’s one area where Jones has always excelled.

“But love, I don’t have no problem in that area,” she said.