It’s Friday, and I just finished up my week volunteering at Love & Care Ministries. This was just an amazing week for me. Every day, I came home dog tired, but incredibly happy and fulfilled. Here’s the whole team:
On Wednesday night, I went out with Janet to do a street feed. We gave out about 60 meals to people who were out walking on the streets and living in various camps, motels, and homes. The street feeds were some of my favorite experiences from my time at Love & Care!
Janet warned me to put on bug spray for our evening out, and she wasn’t kidding. The mosquitoes were the size of rodents out there! I must have some sort of domesticated variety at my place because these bugs looked like monsters! I asked Janet if they gave out bug spray to the people living in the camps, and she said that they’d give it if they had it. Bug spray and repellants are one of those things that get overlooked as donation items, I guess. I wondered if we might do a bug repellant drive up at work. Collect some bottles/candles/etc., especially for those who live in camps?
On Thursday, we served pasta with meat balls and fried squash that came in from a local farm. The squash was delicious! Then we made a fruit salad for Friday and called it a day. I’m not sure if my feet have ever hurt as much as they did Thursday night. What a workout! By the way, my “exercise” for this week has been walking, standing, and hopping up and down from the back of a truck for 7 hours a day. I think that counts, lol!
Today, I helped out at the food pantry and got to give out sack lunches and weekend kits to our homeless friends. I’ve started learning some names throughout the week and even recognized some faces from our street feeds and from working the kitchen.
As I reflect on the past week, I learned a lot more than I ever have on a mission trip. During the sabbatical, our time of service is intended to be a time to refocus, and working at Love & Care has certainly helped me to refocus. Here are a few of my thoughts:
I need to do more of this. Life is made up of all the little choices we make. Every week, I plan out what I want to accomplish, and I usually get most of it done. I need to make more room in my life for helping others. Not out of some sense of duty, but for the sheer joy of it. Because it makes my heart feel good to put a smile on someone’s face.
It’s not that hard to get involved. It was a lot easier to help out than I thought it would be. And, there are a lot of great ways to help from volunteering for a lunch service, to donating items or giving money.
I don’t really need the stuff I think I need. I don’t think of myself as materialistic by any stretch of the imagination, but I have a new appreciation for “wants” and “needs.” Any time I want buy something because I “need” it, I want to take pause and remember my week at Love & Care. Because I don’t really need it, and I can probably be completely happy without it.
Wealth is not about money, it’s about having a bountiful spirit. I don’t know how many people I served this week who said “I’m blessed” when they were asked how they were doing. They were rich in love and joy, even in the midst of difficult circumstances. I want to be more like them.
Don’t forget to smile! Early in the week, I was concentrating on my work and trying to be helpful, and someone came into the kitchen and said, “Hey, you have to smile if you want to work here!” I can’t believe I forgot to smile! I didn’t get to have long conversations with most of the people I served, but I did get to smile at them a lot for the rest of the week, and I hope it brightened someone’s day :).
Do what you feel in your heart. As with any organization, there are rules at Love & Care to protect the generosity of others and make the most of what is given. But sometimes the rules get in the way of helping people who really need it. One of the topics of conversation in the kitchen this week was about when to give beyond what the “rules” said. Janet’s edict from Mark Hewett? “Do what you feel in your heart.” I think those are good words to live by.
Blessings,
Heather