Sometimes as a volunteer you feel like you need to be directly in contact with the person you are serving, on the front lines so to speak. But, what most people need to learn, myself included, is that some of the most powerful ways that you can affect those in need is to do some of the tasks that are done behind the scenes.
This morning our group got to go serve at Bethel Food Pantry. Three quarters of our group was either in the kitchen or helping restock their food pantry. Only one quarter of our group was actually a part of the food service team. Only one quarter got to actually meet the people who we were serving. ONE QUARTER!!! Yet, the people we served would not have gotten the service they did if the other three quarters had not done their part. Someone had to prepare the food(wash potatoes, cut potatoes, chop onions, chop peppers, cut chicken), someone had to cook the food, someone had to put the food in the individual containers, someone had to wash dishes, dry dishes, put juice into cups, stock the pantry, clean up etc….. If someone did not do all of these things behind the scenes, no one would have gotten served in the first place. I never got to interact with the people we were serving at the food pantry but I definitely felt God in the work that I was doing. Washing potatoes might have been the job that I was tasked with completing but it was love that became the product of my work. After all, Jesus came to serve, why shouldn’t we?
Tonight we got to minister to the homeless. No matter how many times I do something like this I am always a little bit nervous but I never worry. God has always made a way for me to talk to someone and has always led our group to the right people. I got to talk to two different guys, Larry and Al. They were two totally different people and yet I could connect to them both very easily. Larry’s parents were from VA so that was an easy in to start talking to him and Al was a War Vet so that made it easy to talk to him. Like everyone else in the world, they just wanted someone to talk to them and listen to what they had to say. It is amazing the perspective that can be gained when you talk to someone who most consider to have nothing.
In society we today we are so blessed. Most of us do not have to worry about our next meal, where we are going to sleep or if we will get any water the next day. Our lives are so blessed yet some of us have found ourselves feeling like we are lacking something in life. I have found that the biggest influence on how my day goes is the perspective that I have going into the day. People would pay to have our kind of problems. Remember how lucky you are to live where you live and to eat what you eat.
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