I watched a miracle unfold last week at the local American
Legion Hall. Our church’s finance chair, Pat, had volunteered our church for an
opportunity to raise funds for our youth group’s next mission trip. All we had
to do was serve a hot dinner to 300 people. No kitchen is available at the
American Legion Hall for those serving the dinners, so all the food had to be
transported in, ready to serve, and we needed a small army of volunteers to do
the serving while the food was hot. We also needed 300 servings of a variety of
desserts. Pat set out to recruit volunteers to cook and to serve and to make
desserts. Even with all of her efforts, however, the volunteers seemed limited.
We were worried if we would have enough, and the dinner was fast approaching.
The church secretary sent out a final plea for volunteers a couple of days before
the dinner.
I hurried to
the American Legion Hall the evening of the dinner with the two chocolate cakes
I’d baked. The last I’d talked with Pat, she was still not sure if she had
enough desserts for 300 or enough volunteers to serve that many dinners quickly
enough. I arrived a bit later than I’d expected and told the doorkeeper that I
was one of the volunteers. He pointed me toward the far corner of the American
Legion Hall. When I reached the service area, I was astounded to find row upon
row of cakes and cookies and pies already cut up and ready to serve as well as
several dozen volunteers lined up. We had a team meeting, and our pastor offered
up a prayer in the back room while we waited for the pledge of allegiance and
the dinner prayer, our signal to serve dinner.
Tears
filled my eyes as I looked around at the extravagant buffet of desserts and all
of the volunteers who had shown up at 5 p.m. on a Tuesday evening. Several said
they’d come after the last plea from the church secretary out of fear that no one
would show up to help. One young mother, whose husband is currently deployed,
had left her job in Temple and driven home to Ft. Hood to pick up her kids from
daycare before turning around and driving back to Temple so they could have the
experience of helping the church serve others. I’m not sure why I keep having
to learn the lesson that my church family is amazing at responding, and that
God always provides the resources we need when we step out to serve others.
Last week I was reminded once again that I could trust God and trust my church
family.
Grace and Peace,
Donna
