Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Rutabaga Holocaust




There we were, 50 strong, located before the rickety warehouse, awaiting our inevitable fate: the massacre and collection of disease infested rutabaga. A gruesome task but one we had all trained for…

Sorry… sometimes I wish that life could be told as an epic tale, making things such as this more worthy of rightful recognition. For what we did was amazing. It was for God, and though it was gross… it was incredible.
Now for what exactly I’m talking about. We walked into a rickety warehouse with the information that we would be “gleaning” (walking through a field picking up all the extra crops that harvesters left behind). Of course, nothing goes as planned. Instead of walking through beautiful fields outside picking fruit, we stayed inside and sorted through rotting and moldy vegetables. As revolting as this task sounds to someone on the outside, it was far more than worth it.
For you see, all of the full-time “employees” at the warehouse are doing something I’ve never seen before. They… aren’t personally making any money… Every dime they receive from outside donation goes to feeding the poor… And even greater, they all work around 6o hours a week. So, really, they are more like full-time volunteers than actual employees. That’s something you definitely don’t see every day. In fact, before going, I’d never seen it. Christ lives in that place. When we first arrived the main man in charge got a phone call. On answering he said something that blew me away. “Praise the Lord”. Who answers a phone like that? I certainly don’t! But in just this example it become SO clear as to just how much God is intertwined into that place. The men and women who work there FOR FREE love to do the work of the Lord. They give their all every day so that the poor, people they don’t even know, can have a decent meal. I envy their strength and love.
Working at the warehouse was in no way a bad experience. I am unexplainably happy I was fortunate to have such an eye-opening occurrence in my life. All I pray is that all 50 of my friends present would remember the day and never forget that sometimes it’s better to be rich in spirit then to be rich in money…

As the saying goes, “The love of money is the fruit of all evil. So, luckily there are people to give it to.” GOD BLESS!

No comments: