Dilemma of Discernment

So as I mentioned, I'm working with the social services at the corps along with serving as Youth Pastor. Monday to Friday we are here as individuals and families come in to apply for outreach which will support their needs. Sometimes it sucks because it's as we see fit or as the government sees fit. Two things have occured over the past two days that I can not even begin to figure out what to do:

Firstly, there is a woman who is a client with us and has cancer. She can not work and she has no food. Her son is too ashamed or too proud to come to the center to pick up food for the two of them. I'm not even sure if the son lives with her. She would like for us to bring her some food that they will be able to cook easily and also for someone to come and speak to her about the Lord.

The problem is that our policy is to not bring food to anyone at their homes. If we begin doing this for one, we'll have to do it for all and we can not support that kind of program. However, if they come in, we can give them a whole bunch of food, non-perishable and perishable.

So how do I call her and tell her that we'd be happy to come and speak with her and pray with her but there is no way that we can bring food to her even though she may be starving?

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Second dilemma is that there is an elderly woman who doesn't speak English very fluently. We hand out bread every day, first come first serve, at 10am, 12pm, and 2pm. We also hand out sweets that were donated by local grocery stores, such as cakes, cookies, pies, and other pastries. Americans LOVE their sweets but we have such a limited number of donated sweets that we have asked that everyone only take one sweet item per family. They can have up to 5 loaves of bread a day if they want to but just one sweet item.

Anyway, this elderly woman came to me today at 10am and tried to communicate with me that she'd really like to have the apple pie that I was putting out on the rack - I gave it to her and she happily went on her way.

She came back this afternoon and maybe forgot that I had seen her this morning. She told me that she has a big big family and that it was someone's birthday on sunday and that she needed 2 cakes or one cake and a pie. I felt bad and said, "Let's see how many people come and this afternoon because they deserve to get something too. If there is anything left over, we'll see." Many people came and they all got one cake or cookie tin each and this elderly lady panicked and took 2 cakes and tried to dash off. Another lady stopped her and told her it's not fair to everyone else who are following the rules and just taking one. I then realised she was the same lady from this morning.
Then her story changed, that she was going to the hospital and picking one cake up for her friend, and one cake for her other friend. I was then told by the other workers here who came to help, that this woman comes every day at 10, 12 and 2 and says today is her family members' birthday and asks for 2-5 cakes. This apparently has been going on for 3 years now.

I had to tell her no. She looked at me with these sad eyes and started to tear up and said, do you have a manager? I told her I was the manager and that we need to be fair to the other people who may need a cake this weekend too. She immediately stopped tearing up and smiled and said, "Oh, sorry, ok, I go now, I not need."

She snuck back 2 minutes later to try to grab another cake, but didn't come any closer becuase I was standing there talking to another client.

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I don't know if she's come back to grab another. I think I really don't want to know. I really don't know how I can differentiate when I'm being decieved or not. I really don't know how my heart can handle saying sorry to people who come after ladies like this one, and really need food and there's nothing to give them.

Apparently, one person was caught last year loading all the bread into his trunk and claiming he needed to distribute it to people on the street in his community or something. It turns out he owned a restaurant and was using the bread himself.

Dilemmas. I'm certain that God is the judge of everything and that He will give discernment to me as needed down this road. It's just hard on the heart. I wish people understood the need more than the want.

P.S. California tap water is the colour of watered down apple juice. Is anyone but myself concerned??? Andrew just pours it into our Brita jug and seems to think it's great. =O