Corn Cart



Özgür is a member of our fellowship and a regular visitor to Filipus.  He often participates in classes and ministry opportunities and he helps every Tuesday with Soup Day. Özgür is a middle aged single Turkish man with no job.  He lives in what is basically an abandoned building with no plumbing or running water, and he has been unemployed for some time.  He lives off a meager government check that he receives related to past health issues.  While his situation is more severe than most, he represents a significant segment of the Turkish population, and therefore, of the Turkish church.  What do we do with the Özgürs among us?

The church isn't in the business of paying people's bills or simply housing people.  Those kinds of activities normally cause more harm than good.  They reinforce the stereotype and conspiracy theories about Christians paying people to convert.  They also do nothing to help encourage the church to find creative ways to meet one another's needs.  However, we can't just do nothing.  People have needs and we are called to serve them.  We must find ways of clothing and feeding the poor while minimizing the negative impact of "handouts." 

So, I have an idea that our church is now pursuing... We bought a cart.  These days the city is dotted with food carts, and a popular item is the "cup of corn."  Corn is heated in a deep pot on the cart and is served into styrofoam cups with the customer's condiment of choice.  A student of mine used to sell grilled liver sandwiches on a cart, and the cart was just sitting in his basement.  So, we bought the cart with church money and we're going to transform it into a corn cart.  Luckily, a good friend and leader in the church has a wonderful company that produces wheelchairs for use in Turkey and export around the world (http://www.kifas.com.tr/).  We brought the cart to the workshop and today I'm headed out there to help them turn our cart into a corn cart.  We will cut a hole in it and fit a big pot into it with room for a burner and gas tank.  The cart already has wheelchair wheels! 

We plan on renting the cart to Özgür.  He'll pay a small fee to use it every day and the rest of the profit will be his to keep.  Typically these aren't the most motivated kind of people, so charging a daily rental fee whether they sell corn or not will give them some incentive to keep the cart working during the day.  Our hope is to provide a way for Özgür and people like him to earn some income to support himself and to teach him some valuable skills and discipline. 

Right now we have no idea if the cart idea will work.  Will the corn actually make a profit?  Will guys like Özgür pay the rental fee?  Will the government give us a problem for operating the cart in town?  If it is successful I can imagine a whole army of corn carts... or maybe we could graduate to a vegetable stand or a little sandwich booth. 

I'll keep you posted.  (the cart in the picture isn't ours... ours isn't likely to be that nice!)

Comments

The Stylite Reader said…
Vanesa, being from Chihuahua, loves corn. So I am sure that corn cart is more than enough motivation to get us to Turkey for a visit.
-Jonathan
August 23, 2010 at 4:34 AM
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