Full day of service!

What a wonderful day for Timothy Christian!  We spent a full day of serving our Lord.  Although people said we were a blessing to others today, the reality was that we were blessed to have this opportunity to serve. 

We went to the society of St. Vincent de Paul today to serve in various capacities.  The motto at St. Vincent de Paul is to strive to Feed, Clothe, House, and Heal individuals and families in the community. We started the day with a tour of the facility. This organization is truly impressive.  They provide services for pretty much everything.  They offer clothes, food, programs for children, programs to help with housing, job hunting, and medical services.  We saw the various areas of the warehouse as well as the farm where the growing of their own food happens as well.  

The boys were then divided into groups.  Some guys worked outside planting food.  

Others worked sorting shoes which was a big task.  

A 3rd group prepared hundreds of tamales which would be used for tomorrow's meal.  

After our time in preparation we then moved into the kitchen for preparations for the evening dinner. 

The center serves dinner Monday - Friday to families in the community.  The service will be for 250 people each night.  While in the kitchen we had multiple jobs.  We spent time preparing the meal.  Some guys opened and filled a garbage sized can with tomato sauce.  Others spent exhausting time cleaning lettuce for the salad bar. Filled cans of lettuce show the amount of work.  Others helped make the enchiladas for the evening.  Of course we also spent time emptying garbage and cleaning floors.

  

The evening brought us into the dining room with more jobs and interactions with people in the community.  Dinner is served restaurant style.  We dressed the tables and prepared for dinner service.  Some guys had the task of working with children during the night. They helped with homework and also played games with the kids.  Others were serving food either at the salad bar or taking actual orders and delivering the plates.

We finished the night at home with devotions and sharing our thoughts on the day.  Although we were exhausted it was such a blessing to see and execute the process of some of the things that St. Vincent DePaul has in place.