I had to take a step back this past weekend and just allow myself to be amazed.
“If you look in the dictionary the words that begin with “oct”;
octopus, octagon, octogenarian, all have to something to do with eight,
then why is “October” the 10th month?”
That was the question posed by a homeless man to my small band of teens.
We had come out early on a Saturday morning to feed them tacos that we made even earlier that morning.
His question was met with puzzled faces and promises to Google it when they returned home. And that was their first of many conversations with the crowd of people hungry for more than breakfast tacos that morning.
I was just chaperoning, it was actually all their idea! Several of the teens from our youth group wanted to do a 30 hour fast and they wanted an opportunity to go out and feed the homeless.
Do I think it was a coincidence that it was the same week as the start of Graffiti Summer? Not any more coincidence than finding out that morning the lady we joined to participate in this outreach only did it on the first Saturday of the month. (The Saturday that we had chosen because it was the only one that wasn’t already booked.)
The teens quickly mixed among the crowd, talking with people, praying with people, blowing my mind! You would think they did this every Saturday! My biggest concern was having them cook sausage & egg tacos at 5:30 in the morning after going without food for almost 24 hours. Their response was “That’s the whole point.”, usually we are the ones that eat and they go hungry!
When we arrived back at my house I couldn’t wait to look up the history of October. It turns out that in the original Roman calendar it was the eighth month! Why had I never noticed that before? How did I let year after year go by and never notice that obvious misplacement?
Maybe because our society is so adept at accepting things where they are and not questioning them.
Why them? Why not me?
What is his story? Her story?
My story?
As for myself and a dozen teens, we are not content to accept things as they have always been We made a few new friends, and we will see them again …
Maybe you can join us!
You can start by joining
Find out more at www.positivelyalene.com
Love,
Pazazdance
LOVE THIS!!! This brought a tear “My biggest concern was having them cook sausage & egg tacos at 5:30 in the morning after going without food for almost 24 hours. Their response was “That’s the whole point.”, usually we are the ones that eat and they go hungry!”
Isn’t that the whole point? We just don’t understand the other side of the street until we go stand there and learn.
And hey, now I know about October. That is so cool!
I love this post, Carolina. And I’m with Alene — loving the kids’ responses and that they GOT the point of their service! I’m loving everyone’s stories and excited to see how God will use this!