Fundraiser

[It helps if your camera is actually plugged into the computer when you want to download (or it is upload?) your pictures... glad I figured that out... It only took me three days...]

So, like I said, on Sunday we did a Fundraiser Meal to enable us to do missions down in Argentina. We fed over 300 people all-you-can-eat latin food at church after the service. It turned out to be a tremendous success and definately yum-o (at least judging by all the requests for recipes). The biggest miracle: everybody got fed! There was only rice left over.

The menu included: your choice of White Rice or Brown Rice, Argentine Lentils, Brazilian Black Beans with meat (feijoada), Dominican Pigeon Peas with Coconut Milk (guandules con coco), Venezuelan shredded meat (carne mechada) with arepas (Venezuelan cornmeal pancakes) and black beans (Venezuelan-style), Puerto Rican Fricasséed Chicken, Kenyan Samosas, salad, dessert, and bottled water. (recipes to come)

Here we are setting up and talking administration. Lee (in the light blue shirt), I discovered, is Mr. Administration. He got busy rearranging tables and power cords and crockpots and food for the ultimate serving experience. He had that line flowing like no one's business.

Since we had no use of the cafeteria's kitchen, we had to bring food for 300+ people, already cooked and warmed, ready to go into crockpots and electric roasters - of which we had 20-30 easily! 

Maribel (from Venezuela) made fresh arepas (cormeal pancakes). She actually thanked me for letting her do all that she did (she thanked me??). She said she feels like she has been given certain gifts and hasn't really been using them. It made her feel good to do something. That really touched me.

...beginning to serve...

...the masses...

We had salad and utensils at the end (Lee's idea) - it made it much easier to carry your plate through the line without dropping anything (Lee is so smart).

The desserts (donated by the youth - thanks, guys, you rock!).

So bummed I didn't get to try these! I know it was all amazing, because

it all vanished in the blink of an eye.

It was only after we planned this that I realized there was NO WAY I was going to be able to cook that much food for that many people. We did a fundraiser when we went to Ecuador a few years ago - but this was twice as big! We are so thankful to all the people that came forward and offered to help and cook and serve and donate their time and resources. We seriously could not have pulled it off without all the help. It was beautiful to see the Body of Christ rise up and work together for the purpose of advancing God's Kingdom through missions (in this case, helping to send us). Truly beautiful.

And, even though administration isn't anywhere close to what I would call a gift of mine, somehow I managed to organize who was to do what, when, how, and how much. Some gifts can be learned with practice, like hospitality or teaching or administration - so this was a good experience for me. Like when they asked me to be in charge of 30 babies and toddlers in the nursery one year for VBS... nerve-wracking, but a good experience. As Tony once said, "Well, you want to be a missionary, don't you? You'll need to know how to do a little bit of everything." So true.

And in case you're curious how we made out, we can now pay off the remaining cost of shipping the Mission Mobile down to Argentina! (the yard sale paid for the first half of the cost:))

Isn't that great?!

"Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good" -Psalm 106:1