Tuesday, February 9, 2021

February 9 – “It’s … the Foodmobile”

My plan was to head out to the church early to be there in plenty of time to greet the Food Bank’s Foodmobile.  They were setting up in Seaside’s parking lot to give away food boxes to anyone who needed one.  I was all ready to go.  Walked out to the truck.  Chris had her cardiac rehab appointment, so she had the car reserved.  Aaannd … the truck wouldn’t start.  Crank a few times, but the battery soon died.  Just won’t hold a charge from one jump start to the next.  What to do now?  I called Nathan.  Fortunately, he and April were both off work.  I was able to borrow one of their vehicles and be on my way.

 

I still beat the Foodmobile.  I wasn’t the first one in the parking lot, though.  Several families were already there waiting.  They expected a line and wanted to be first.  No problem there.  Kelly, the Food Bank rep/Seasider who called to set this up, arrived and found out the truck was still ten minutes out, so they started registering the folks who were there.  And at this point I will add that it was cold.  The wind was out of the east, and it had that bitter remnant of a north nastiness to it.  I was glad I had a jacket at least. 

 

The truck finally arrived.  It was one of those refrigerated box trucks with the refrigeration unit un top, so it was pretty tall.  Why is that important?  Well, there’s a bit of a story to that.  See, the driver missed the entrance from the main street, so he turned down the side street toward our back parking area.  No problem there.  However, he continued moving the truck closer and closer to the building, we suddenly realized that he had come into contact with the overhead cables and wires attaching us to things like … oh … electricity.  Several guys ran over and yelled for him to stop before he pulled something loose.  Sadly, they were too late to rescue our wifi cable.  It was unceremoniously snapped in two.  And the electrical wires were next.  Fortunately the guys stopped him before any of those became casualties as well.  He managed to back away carefully, freeing himself from the entanglements.  Looks like we have to exist without wifi in our worship center until we can get reconnected.  But it could have been so much worse. 

 

The event went really well, though.  Kelly said they didn’t expect more than two or three families at best.  I couldn’t at least five that I thought might come.  As it turned out, there were ten or fifteen families represented.  Several of the people I didn’t know, but I enjoyed meeting and chatting with them as we waited for the truck.  I think it was considered a rousing success from the Food Bank’s perspective.  They may even make it a monthly event.  Happy to host something like this … as long as our wires stay out of the way …

 

Luke 16:10 says, “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.”

 

Father, thank you for the folks at the Food Bank.  They do a great work for the community and for you.  I think you can trust them with much.  Amen.

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