Five Thousand Pounds of Potatoes

Editor's Note: Victory Mission will need volunteers on Saturday, 15 December, from 8–11 AM to deliver Christmas meals to Springfield residents. Stay tuned to E.notes for more details (and be cleaning out your trunk) in the meantime!

by Heather Myer

On an otherwise uneventful Saturday morning, 17 of Life Point’s young adults gathered together in the heart of Springfield. Abandoning much-desired sleep, we shook off drowsiness and bypassed a lazy morning to serve our community. We arrived in carpools from Ozark, Nixa, and the far corners of Springfield for two purposes: to eat chocolate muffins and help with the Victory Mission's Thanksgiving Drive. VM assists families who have come across difficult times and eases their burden by providing groceries necessary for a holiday feast. We loaded delivery vehicles with food items. FedEx joined families and friends to go on quests through side streets in order to greet families and hand deliver meals. Five hundred families and over 1,500 individuals were blessed by Victory Missions.

We quickly learned that in order to make an impact for our community, we must first serve each other. Traffic cones provided by Matt and Stephen and hand signals by Sarah, clad in a bright orange sweater, directed cars forward. Town Criers such as Amy Hill were necessary to guide Kit, Jeff, and Dallas as they carried large turkeys. Andrea shook open brown paper bags for Heather G. to fill with cartons of eggs. Colby tore open bundles of potatoes for Jon. Courtney and Lyndsey encouraged others with good cheer as they manned the grocery sack pallet. Alison and Kylie told others what was needed to complete orders as they dashed between Fords and Nissans, arms filled with turkey loaves and eggs. Our labor knew no boundaries to height. A petite Katie handed a rather tall Heather M. a low-lying bag of groceries before grabbing one of her own. A moment later, Heather helped Katie hoist her bag in the bed of a large pick-up.

Within a 3 hour time span, our toil was completed. Through a collective group effort we lifted 5,000 lbs of potatoes, carried 6,000 eggs, tossed over 5,000 lbs of turkey, and handed over 500 sacks of dry goods. Our weight-bearing exercises have brought a new meaning to “community.” Several lessons were learned by our labors:

1. Assembly lines work great for playing pass-the-turkey and re-boxing eggs.
2. It is never fun to be too late for the action. If trunk has already been filled, you don’t want to be the one returning a 50 lbs bundle of potatoes to a pallet.
3. Don’t be fooled by appearances. Some large SUVs were only able to take 3 meals. Several 2 door cars held up to 9 meals!
4. It is necessary to start a chilly morning with hot chocolate and a prayer of thanksgiving to our Lord.

Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does. —Ephesians 6:7–8

Thanksgiving Celebrate LifePoint 2006

from Chris Austin

Bless a Family: Young Adults Deliver Gifts to Local Family

by Heather Myer

Our collective gifts offering looked quite impressive beside Heather and Dallas’s fireplace. Paul, Heather, Dallas, and I gathered our community group’s collected Christmas offering and put it in the back of Heather G’s car as we chatted about our workweeks and plans for the holidays. My family is in California, and this is my first holiday season without them. For Thanksgiving, I was so incredibly blessed as several friends and co-workers adopted me during the week of Thanksgiving. I made off with not one, but seven Thanksgiving dinners! Christmas was looking a bit bleaker, yet I knew that God would provide.

The previous month, Paul and I had delivered a Thanksgiving meal to the Travers, but this night I had forgotten bits of how to get to their home. Luckily, he knew exactly which directions to follow. I am easily lost, so I was glad he came with us. As we left the city limits and drove out into the country, I noticed the stars were visible against the dark sky, and we gazed in awe at them. I have not seen the stars since my family sold our property last spring, and the stars are simply not visible against the Springfield city lights. We reflected on the beauty of God’s creation, and soon, we approached the road leading to the Travers' home. Trees barren of leaves lined the gravel road that twisted before us.

At the house, we gathered our gift offerings and tentatively knocked on the Travers’ front door. A small girl with long dark hair darted out, without socks or slippers on her feet. She gave us a shy smile and then looked up at me and said, “I remember you!” She hugged me around my waist as I danced to keep the packages from falling. “Hello, Deb!” I replied and returned her hug. We entered the warm home and saw a man and a boy watching TV. My mind immediately went blank, but Heather G. saved the moment, greeting each person in the room by their first names. Heather’s social graces never fail to impress me. She only knew the family by e-mail, yet she knew their names by heart when she met them for the first time in person. “Gerald, how’s it going?” “And you must be Shane!” she said to a petite 18-year-old girl who was knitting a stocking in the corner of the room. The four of us went back to the car for another armload of presents, and we placed them on the floor beside a small gathering of presents. The family did not have a tree.

We had an enjoyable time with the family. Dallas spoke with the father, Paul with Gerald, and Deb and the Heathers admired Shane’s stocking. Shane looked as if she had barely turned 14, and she told us that she was from Florida and that her parents divorced and that she is living with her mother and stepfather. Gerald and Deb are from their father’s prior marriage and the three of them have been together almost a year now. Shane had created an impressive stocking and showed us a ski cap complete with snowflakes! Heather immediately ordered two stockings and ski caps and offered a generous sum in return. I was again impressed by HG’s kindness and genuine spirit. I also ordered mittens from Shane.

The children shared their pets with us: two dogs, nine cats, and two geckos, and we were impressed by the multitude of their animals. The cats were each named after a seasoning: Basil, Sage, Marjoram, etc. while the geckos were dubbed such names as Honey Bear and Baby Doll. The dogs were labeled Scooter and Clifford. It humored me. Paul took Deb aside and asked her if she had painted the landscape painting behind the couch. Deb blushed and shook her head. She then tugged his sleeve and pointed at a watercolor on the refrigerator. Paul acted amazed at her artistic abilities and begged Deb to paint one for him. She blushed and quickly shook her head and shyly dashed behind her brother.

Dallas offered up a Christmas prayer for the family. The girls gave us all hugs and Gerald and Mr. Travers shook our hands. Before I turned to leave, Shane and Deb tugged at my sleeve. “Heather, are you a doctor?” I was still wearing my scrubs from work and my stethoscope was peaking out of my lab coat. I smiled and knelt down beside the girls. “No, I’m a nurse.” “Oh, well, could you please, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, could you please wish all the new babies at the nursery a Merry Christmas from me and Deb?” I was touched. I smiled and nodded, accepting her Christmas tidings. How sweet a request! Neither of the girls had on slippers or jackets, and both shivered in the cold and huddled near me for warmth. Deb threw her arms around my shoulders and whispered in my ear, “You are a nice lady. Thank you.”

I fought to keep back the tears that welled up as I returned to the car to join the Gilions and Paul. Once I was safe in the darkness of the night, I felt a tear trickle down my cheek. I realized that I truly was blessed as a child and that this very evening was God’s Christmas present to me. I meekly thanked Paul, Dallas, and Heather for joining me and said a silent prayer for the dear, sweet children. We were all silent on the way home as we reflected upon the evening, but after a few moments I broke the silence by proclaiming, “They thought I was a doctor!” The others turned to me, amused. “It was the stethoscope. It does it every time!” said I with a smile. I reflected on how very kind our Lord is and how dear the fellowship I have joined at LifePoint has become to me. The thought warmed me as we parted ways; I hardly noticed the bitter cold.