Cantaloupe

We had so much food there were people working at three different locations. About a dozen bagging and loading trucks at Madison Cross Roads school, another half dozen or so fixing breakfast and then handing out specific items at our Wall Triana facility, and then another forty or more running our distribution at Harvest Elementary. That doesn’t even include all the different people that played a part during the week to bring it together. 

There were pickups from the Manna House, different Publix stores all over Madison County, the Food Bank, Big Lots... I don’t even know that I am aware of all the things that happened during the week to bring about the production on Saturday morning. But what I do know is this, there was a lot of food, a whole lot of food...for a whole lot of people. There were well over two hundred families that benefited from House of the Harvest services yesterday and each received boxes of produce, bread and bakery items, and several other items to help sustain their families this week. I can’t describe to you how much food it was. You would have to have seen it for yourself. 

We have seen God do so much in the last five years that sometimes I just expect it. I used to get super excited about it...now I take it for granted at times. Jennifer has to remind me sometimes when I look through the wrong lenses. This week was one of those weeks where you could watch it all develop. It’s an incredible reminder. We spent $96 this week on some specific things we needed. As we pulled into the parking lot with that very load, an old friend happened to be stopping by. He gave us a $100 bill. 

We had more food than we have ever had before this week. In fact, Halsey Food Services called us Thursday wanting us to pick up a donation and I had to put them off until next week because we had nowhere to put it. We typically try to give out eighteen items in various quantities on a Saturday. This week we gave out thirty. Someone who had come to help for the first time commented, “I had no idea how much food you guys give out.” 

Throughout this whole coronavirus season, it has been extra special to watch. We will have just enough bread on Saturday, then the next week we will get phone calls for additional pickups. More bread, and sure enough more people will show up that Saturday. Every week, every family, every need...it continues to come together just right. 

And in the midst of it all, we get to participate in these really special moments that allow us to know that God is in control of it all and that He knows exactly where it all needs to go and how it all needs to get there. And we had one of those special moments yesterday when an overjoyed little boy proclaimed from the back seat of the family vehicle, “Mommy, we get to have cantaloupe at home!” 

He had never had cantaloupe at home before...only as part of his school lunch. Today was a new day. And he was excited. The strange thing is, we had oranges for all two hundred plus families….multiple bags actually. We had multiple bags of apples for all of them. We had multiple potatoes, cucumbers, squash, tomatoes, and even zucchini for everyone. But we only had one box of cantaloupes. One box, maybe seven or eight cantaloupes total. Over 220 families we served. And somehow, one of those cantaloupes found that car where that little boy sat, who loved cantaloupe and had never had cantaloupe at home. None of us can orchestrate that. 

So in the middle of this strange, difficult, challenging season, at House of the Harvest, we want you to know that He still loves the smallest of us and He still moves mountains. And that’s enough to keep me moving for another week.