Feed My Starving Children
About 3 years ago Scott and I were invited to attend a service at a Grace Brethren church close to our home by a friend of Scott's from preschool. I've mentioned our church here on our blog many times, but just thought I'd give it a more formal introduction tonight. We love hundreds of things about this church from the laid back yet authentic atmosphere to the vision of our head pastor Jason and the church staff. This fall our church gave us one more reason to appreciate it by launching what was called The Near and Far Project. There were some Saturdays where you could volunteer to serve people near our church, and last weekend we had an opportunity to serve those far away who are in need.
Because of some conflicts on our schedule and the passing of my grandfather, Scott and I were not able to do any of the near parts of this project, but we were excited to participate in last weekend's events. Our worship center was transformed into what I could loosely call a little factory for putting together meals for those in need. Our church teamed up with an organization called Feed My Starving Children and packaged meals to send to children in desperate need of them. There were four shifts during which you could work on a team to package meals; I got to work two shifts and Scott was with me for one (he was hanging out with Jaden and Sienna during the other shift that I worked!).
Here are Scott and I getting ready to work:
Here are our friends who brought along their baby girl to work a shift. Isn't she the most adorable girl you've ever seen in a hairnet?!?!
Here is half of the team we were on. In comparing this to a factory, this was like our "line." By the way, our line was the fastest working line of all! Not that it matters, but we just were excited about our productivity and how well we all could work together :) I didn't know a few of the people on our line until we worked together, and others I knew their names and faces, but got to actually know a bit about them and enjoy their personalities during our time together. It was great getting to know them!
This is the food in bulk that we were packing. From left to right are boxes of rice, soy, dried veggies and vegetarian chicken flavoring that was packed with 23 vitamins and nutrients. The food was carefully measured , put into plastic bags through a funnel, the bags weighed and then sealed. 36 bags, each of which contained 6 meals, were packed into boxes and weighed again (the weight is important for shipping costs and must be within a certain range) before being loaded onto a truck. Eventually the meals will end up in places like Haiti where they are distributed to those who need them!
This is what Scott's station on the line looked like. He was responsible for making sure each bag was sealed properly and then packing 36 bags into each box. I did the sealing of the bags on the shift where we worked together, and helped with opening bags and getting them around the funnel during the other shift I worked.
Because of some conflicts on our schedule and the passing of my grandfather, Scott and I were not able to do any of the near parts of this project, but we were excited to participate in last weekend's events. Our worship center was transformed into what I could loosely call a little factory for putting together meals for those in need. Our church teamed up with an organization called Feed My Starving Children and packaged meals to send to children in desperate need of them. There were four shifts during which you could work on a team to package meals; I got to work two shifts and Scott was with me for one (he was hanging out with Jaden and Sienna during the other shift that I worked!).
Here are Scott and I getting ready to work:
Here are our friends who brought along their baby girl to work a shift. Isn't she the most adorable girl you've ever seen in a hairnet?!?!
Here is half of the team we were on. In comparing this to a factory, this was like our "line." By the way, our line was the fastest working line of all! Not that it matters, but we just were excited about our productivity and how well we all could work together :) I didn't know a few of the people on our line until we worked together, and others I knew their names and faces, but got to actually know a bit about them and enjoy their personalities during our time together. It was great getting to know them!
This is the food in bulk that we were packing. From left to right are boxes of rice, soy, dried veggies and vegetarian chicken flavoring that was packed with 23 vitamins and nutrients. The food was carefully measured , put into plastic bags through a funnel, the bags weighed and then sealed. 36 bags, each of which contained 6 meals, were packed into boxes and weighed again (the weight is important for shipping costs and must be within a certain range) before being loaded onto a truck. Eventually the meals will end up in places like Haiti where they are distributed to those who need them!
This is what Scott's station on the line looked like. He was responsible for making sure each bag was sealed properly and then packing 36 bags into each box. I did the sealing of the bags on the shift where we worked together, and helped with opening bags and getting them around the funnel during the other shift I worked.
After 4 shifts and approximately 400 volunteers were finished last Sunday afternoon, our church had packaged over 106,000 meals! It was absolutely incredible to be a part of this and to know that we helped to make a difference in the lives of some very special kids. We will not ever meet the children who eat these meals and probably will never even know exactly where the meals we packed will be sent, but our hands touched each of those bags and our strength, effort, positive energy and most importantly prayers went into each of those meals right along with the edible ingredients. It felt so amazing to be a part of this and this is just one more reason why we love our church!
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Just one more little note tonight--we had a good trip down to my Alma Mater today and I look forward to sharing the photos with you this weekend. I kept thinking the entire time we were at OU about how much I miss those carefree college days (well, I didn't think of them as carefree at the time, but compared to motherhood / adulthood, they most certainly were the most carefree days of my life!!) but I wouldn't give up my current life now even for one second to go back. I enjoyed sharing a town that always will hold a very special place in my heart with my girls, especially with Jaden who kept talking and asking about college, and telling me that when she's 5, she's going to be all grown up and going to college herself (ha!). I will share more details with you all when I post the photos this weekend, but for now, I need to hit the sack. I'm EXHAUSTED!!
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