For at least a handful of years I have seen emails requesting help with the food and gift distribution at the R Family Mission each December.  And for as many years I have not been able to help out.  John was able to one year, but it has never worked out for me to go.  Well, this year things just lined up.  My mom was willing and able to stay with the three younger girls.  And John was already scheduled to be off for the day that they were distributing this year.  So he, the older three kids, and I signed up to help out for a two hour window of time and I was so looking forward to seeing how God might use us.

We managed to get out of the house on time and using the address listed for the ministry we managed to get to their headquarters ahead of schedule.  The parking lot was all but empty.  But as we were pulling in, two other vehicles had also just pulled in.  One was a man with a big truck and another was an SUV with 5 members of the McQuaid hockey team.  We entered through the front door and found someone to direct us to the kitchen.  It didn’t quite look like what we expected.  A fairly quiet building with seemingly nothing much going on.  We found out that the truck needed to be unloaded.  So, just like in the olden days when people passed water buckets down and back a line to put out a fire, we all got into a line to unload the truck.  By passing, passing, passing them along, we helped unload about 100 hams.  Frozen hams.  Right from the back of the truck into the freezer.  After the meat was unloaded, John decided he’d best ask a few questions.  We were afraid we were in the wrong place.  John explained to the man who had driven the truck over what it was WE thought we were supposed to be doing.  Turns out that for this operation the RFM partnered with another local ministry and used THEIR building, about a mile away, for distribution.  “But,” the man said, “You aren’t in the wrong place at all.  God sent you here.”  And then we went back to work.  See, in addition to the ham, there were about 100 boxes of food that had to come off the truck.  So.  We stood in our line again.  Imagine a truck with it’s big door open.  Then imagine a young high school hockey player lifting a box off the piles and into the arms of another young high school hockey player.  Then imagine player 2 handing the package to player three, who then hands it off to player four.  Then player four hands the box to player five.  And player five hands the box off to Marie.  Marie.  My nine-year-old joy-filled little girl stood alongside boys twice her age (and adults 4-5 times her age) to unload 100 boxes for families in need.  The boxes went from her to me, to John, to Nigel, to a worker, to Stewart, to the last worker.  A nine-year-old girl.  Can you imagine Jesus’ smile that morning? 

Well, let me tell you about her smile.  The boxes weren’t exceedingly heavy.  They were a little awkward, but they weren’t full to the brim.  And they had food in them.  We like food.  And Marie started commenting on them after about the 40th box.  And she had me in stitches.  First there was, “Oooo! Mac and cheese.” And, “Oooo! Noodles.”  And, “Apples.”  Then, “Ah.  Something I’ve never seen before.”  Then after another two dozen boxes, she turns to me with the box and says, “One handed!”  After I burst out laughing, she then says, “No handed.”  John and I were dying.  All with a giddy smile and never missing a beat.  She didn’t drop a box.  (She and Stewart had both dropped a ham or two earlier.)  The boys were also pretty smiley.  They stood closer to the ministry workers and had some conversations as they piled these 100 boxes up and up and out and out over a reception area floor.

We finished with the truck emptying and then followed the two vehicles over to the distribution center to see what we could do there. 

There wasn’t much to be done.  We were given a job of breaking down unused boxes.  This was something we are good at – dismantling things.  We loaded the cardboard into a truck, too.  Then they asked us to pass out bags of extra produce to the people that were waiting for their boxes of food and the gift bags for the kids that were registered.  People eagerly accepted the bags of produce and it wasn’t long before the bags were gone.  There wasn’t much else for us to do, but we hung around a little longer.  I’m not sure we were terribly vital, or if the kids had any earth-shattering life experiences, but I sincerely enjoyed my rare opportunity to do “works”.  I know my prayers are just as important, but it does feel awesome to exercise my arms and legs for His work. too.

And it was SUPER awesome to see my kids involved, especially to see my 9-year-old daughter keep pace with those big hockey players. 

*sigh* I wish I had had my camera.