Two weeks ago, my wife and I held our outreach ministry’s ninth annual Thanksgiving event. We gathered with a group of willing volunteers in a local parking lot with folding tables set up in a round-robin system. On top of the tables were hundreds of frozen turkeys, sides, clothing, and some miscellaneous items too. As we’ve been doing for nearly a decade now, we intentionally invited our community to stop by and receive some assistance with their families’ Thanksgiving meal. Everything we had was gone within just a few short hours. Overall, it was a blessed day, and it was nice to see some old and new friends and faces.
About midway through the outreach a really nice car pulled slowly and almost hesitantly into the parking lot. Just like at any food pantry, charity, or outreach event, when a nice car pulls into the parking lot there’s always a collective gasp. The gasp usually comes from the volunteers, the receivers, and everyone else in observation. If that gasp had a voice it would say, “Why are they here receiving a handout when they have such a nice car?”
The lady who exited the car was probably around forty years old. She wasn’t dressed terribly, but she also wasn’t dressed to fit the car. She immediately explained that she was turned away from another Thanksgiving outreach because she wasn’t aware of their prior sign-up sheet. They apparently suggested that she visit us because we we’re known to be looser in giving. Hence the holiday we were celebrating, thanks and giving.
She happily carried her turkey and single brown paper bag of sides back to the really nice car she pulled up in. I could tell she wasn’t ready to leave just yet though. She slowly walked back towards me and motioned for a possibly private conversation off to the side.
“I’m really thankful for the help you guys have given me, I’ve never had to receive anything like this before. I wanted to know if it was possible to receive another bag of sides. The items you guys are giving me are our Thanksgiving meal; there’s no money this year for anything more. There’s three elderly adults in our home and some extra sides would really help us out.”
When my wife and I were first married, I fell slowly and deathly sick. For a few years, we had no idea what the sickness was. It progressively became constant vomiting and not able to swallow much food. My weight, strength, drive to do anything at all, and mental health were in a really bad place. I wasn’t able to work, and my wife was making a few dollars over minimum wage at her job. Hanging directly over our heads besides the illness was also the rent, student loans, and medical bills. There were distinct moments when we could have really used some assistance with food. One time, we searched our car and studio apartment for enough loose change for a “managers special” pack of chicken drumsticks to be cooked over rice. That was the whole meal. Yet, we’re still much too full of pride to stand on a local food pantry line. Most of the food pantries in our community are on roads where hundreds of cars pass by while you’re standing on line with your empty bags ready to be filled with charity. We didn’t want people to see us standing there in need of help.
Not this woman though. The lady in the nice car put all of her pride and dignity aside to look directly into the eyes of someone around her age and ask for some extra canned goods, canned goods that she could have bought at a local supermarket or discount store for around twenty dollars.
We only tend to see the nice car, but in reality, we know nothing about the person’s life. Was she, her child, or elderly parents sick and her lucrative career had to be placed on the back burner for now? Was the car borrowed from a neighbor or one of the extended family members she was living with only to go pick up her Thanksgiving help? Was it a lease or possibly up to be repossessed any day now?
No one truly knows our whole situation, our struggles, trials, blessings and our hearts but God, and that’s sufficient enough for me.
