Today I smell like vegetable soup.
Our outreach team spent the morning and part of the afternoon serving at the Okanagan Gleaners helping to produce bags of dehydrated vegetable soup. This organization takes vegetables that would have normally been wasted, chops them, dehydrates them and creates soup mixes. They produce approximately 6 million servings annually which are then distributed around the globe through reputable, well-established relief organizations. From Greenland to Colombia, Ghana to Siberia the God-given abundance of food in the Okanagan Valley is being spread throughout the world. Even more wonderful, this amazing organization is run on donations and volunteer power.
We worked with "the Gleaners" as they are affectionately called in Oliver, earlier this fall for a morning chopping beets. If you've ever grown vegetables in your own garden, you may already know that most produce does not actually look like the food we buy in our grocery stores. A lot of what you grow in your garden is referred to as "seconds" and would never make it to a grocery store shelf. I was astonished to see huge crates of beets that looked perfectly good to me which, if not for the Gleaners, would not have been eaten by anyone.
Today our time was very different. The beets we chopped (mixed with more beets chopped by other people) were now dehydrated along with brussels sprouts, tomatoes, peas, carrots, peppers, beans, broccoli, cauliflower, turnips, potatoes, and onions. The renovated 1920's tobacco-drying barn was abuzz with a chain of workers packaging the soup mix to be sent overseas.
I was assigned three different tasks over the course of our day and so got to see three different perspectives on this flurry of activity. At first I was given a seat behind a giant metal funnel, with a box of labelled plastic bags beside me. My job was to hold the plastic bag under the funnel as someone poured the soup mix into the funnel and then pass the bag off to someone else. The bag was then sealed, and packed into a big plastic bag in a large barrel. Each barrel contained about 70 bags of soup mix, and today 86 barrels were filled!
The whole system worked like a well-oiled machine and was amazing to be a part of. Once I got the hang of my different jobs I had time to reflect on this flurry of activity. Each time someone in the chain slowed up, it slowed everybody up. Although each different job I did was not difficult, it would have slowed up the whole process if someone had to try and do my job at the same time as their own. Each part was valuable and unique.
Paul talks about a metaphor for the body of Christ (the church) that is similar to this idea in his first letter to the Corinthian church:
As I get ready for bed, the smell of vegetable soup remains in my laundry basket: a reminder of a great day's work and a lesson from God.
Thanks for your prayers!
Prayer Requests:
Praise Report
Our outreach team spent the morning and part of the afternoon serving at the Okanagan Gleaners helping to produce bags of dehydrated vegetable soup. This organization takes vegetables that would have normally been wasted, chops them, dehydrates them and creates soup mixes. They produce approximately 6 million servings annually which are then distributed around the globe through reputable, well-established relief organizations. From Greenland to Colombia, Ghana to Siberia the God-given abundance of food in the Okanagan Valley is being spread throughout the world. Even more wonderful, this amazing organization is run on donations and volunteer power.
We worked with "the Gleaners" as they are affectionately called in Oliver, earlier this fall for a morning chopping beets. If you've ever grown vegetables in your own garden, you may already know that most produce does not actually look like the food we buy in our grocery stores. A lot of what you grow in your garden is referred to as "seconds" and would never make it to a grocery store shelf. I was astonished to see huge crates of beets that looked perfectly good to me which, if not for the Gleaners, would not have been eaten by anyone.
Today our time was very different. The beets we chopped (mixed with more beets chopped by other people) were now dehydrated along with brussels sprouts, tomatoes, peas, carrots, peppers, beans, broccoli, cauliflower, turnips, potatoes, and onions. The renovated 1920's tobacco-drying barn was abuzz with a chain of workers packaging the soup mix to be sent overseas.
I was assigned three different tasks over the course of our day and so got to see three different perspectives on this flurry of activity. At first I was given a seat behind a giant metal funnel, with a box of labelled plastic bags beside me. My job was to hold the plastic bag under the funnel as someone poured the soup mix into the funnel and then pass the bag off to someone else. The bag was then sealed, and packed into a big plastic bag in a large barrel. Each barrel contained about 70 bags of soup mix, and today 86 barrels were filled!
The whole system worked like a well-oiled machine and was amazing to be a part of. Once I got the hang of my different jobs I had time to reflect on this flurry of activity. Each time someone in the chain slowed up, it slowed everybody up. Although each different job I did was not difficult, it would have slowed up the whole process if someone had to try and do my job at the same time as their own. Each part was valuable and unique.
Paul talks about a metaphor for the body of Christ (the church) that is similar to this idea in his first letter to the Corinthian church:
Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts of the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" On the contrary those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable...If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. 1 Corinthians 12:12, 14, 17-22a, 26b-27Being a part of a team in YWAM is like this metaphor. Each of us has different abilities, challenges, and gifts. As we learn to walk together and support each other we can produce great things for the Kingdom.
As I get ready for bed, the smell of vegetable soup remains in my laundry basket: a reminder of a great day's work and a lesson from God.
Thanks for your prayers!
Prayer Requests:
- Team unity.
- Health.
- Sensitivity to God's leading.
- That we would each grow in our role in the body and be able to support each other in this.
Praise Report
- In reading updates from the team serving in the Philippines I was wishing I could be there to do something as well--I found out that some of the soup mix we made today will be sent to the Philippines!
- An opportunity to serve a church we haven't worked with yet in the Oliver area.
- An amazing group of individuals to work alongside on our team and their unique role in this body.
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