25 | March | 2014 | Next Comes Africa

Today was a good day. One of those days where it hits you that you’re in a particular season of life with a particular group of people – people who wouldn’t know each other or be on this side of the world together if not for God reaching into each of your lives, plucking you out, and saying, “This is where I want you to spend this moment. Take it all in – the good and the bad, because it won’t last long.”

Today about ten of us (plus some very helpful kiddos) guided 35-40 employees of a large techy type of company to pack 500 food parcels. It was a long, exhausting day in the sun and non-air conditioned cars. But I feel more invigorated than I have in a long time. I’m trying to pinpoint why.

One reason – we were all together. Often it’s all the girls doing something or Matt and me and a couple of local brothers doing Mobile BEC, but today it was all the volunteers: the Szabos, the Wrights, Matt, me, and Yvette, our fearless leader. There was no complaining, even from the kids – who are all pros at this stuff by now. Sonya and I discussed our mutual love of finding the most efficient way to do a task – the joy of figuring out how to shave a few seconds off of each step to make a complicated process go more smoothly (makes me miss the days in college when I used to fill in at a brother’s mailing company – I was the fastest envelope sorter/stuffer/piler in the place). The employees were cheerful (except that one dude) and wanted to know more about our work. The only slight critique I overheard was, “next year we need to do away with the dress code on this day.”

After they packed their parcels and deposited them by the front door, they stuck around to make a long assembly line to load them right into the vehicles – even though I’m pretty sure it was creeping into their lunch break. The company even sent one of their trucks with us, which wasn’t part of the arrangement. That truck, plus 7 volunteer cars and a trailer (working around two flat tires on two different vehicles) was enough to move all the parcels to the school in Lamontville.

Once we got to the school there were dozens of elementary age children to carry the parcels into a supply room, from where we’ll dole them out on Friday (which is break-up day for a weeklong holiday – good to know all the kids will have food over the break). The kids were eager little helpers…except the girls. Sonya and I kept trying to beckon them up to help (I even motioned that they could carry the packs on their head if they so chose), but were told “no girls allowed.” We were quite perplexed by this, until someone said a few girls had been helping at first but were carrying them wrong and they were ripping. We managed to snag a few and encourage them that they were quite capable, but the teachers rebuked them and it went back to being all boys.

Afterward we all enjoyed a nice looonnnng lunch at a little coffee shop. We ate, examined our sunburns, made plans for the next few days, drank milkshakes, ate ice cream, drank coffee, and relaxed.

I’m tempted to go to bed right now. I might, since tomorrow is Crossfit and I plan to run there and back. (Hmm…then I’ll have to drive back for a shower since our water is still out…maybe the running should wait till next week.) Rick and Sonya and I were moving a bit gingerly today, constantly discovering new sore muscles. I’m sure there will be plenty more to come from the events of today.

Here are a few pictures of the event.

[Panorama of the whole operation]