.......FISH FRY!

So about halfway through the day I got calls from two different people with food they wanted to give us to use tonight. Between them they had enough to feed about 40. Well that's about how many we've been seeing at the first stop. So that left the second stop for me to come up with something to cook.

I went ahead and pushed on with my Tomato, Meatball, and Rice soup idea. I butchered it but, I'll tell you about that later.



CREEEECH! / SARA / ELLEN / MADDY / ALYSSA / WADE / BLAKE / WAYNE / MICHAEL / STEPHEN / HAYDEN / JANE / GARY MCKNIGHT / MORGAN / HALEY / STEVE / MERRITT / MAGGIE / J.BOGGS / TYLER / JOHANNA / and me were ready for cold weather tonight but it actually was very nice. I thought so, anyway.



At the first stop we had Turkey, Mashed potatoes, Mac'n Cheese, Potato Salad, Peaches and Energy Drinks.

Energy Drinks?

Yeah, I got involved with trying to to do everything all at once and forgot to assign Tea duty to anyone. Around 7:30 someone goes Where's the Tea? I'll carry it out.

Whoops.

I had planned to pass out an energy drink to every one as they left, so instead we just gave them a cup of ice and a can of SLAP FROST! with their meal. They're out there running all over downtown right now, jacked up on their SLAP FROST!



When the turkey ran out, Plan B was Ham. When the ham ran out, Plan C was Barbecue. When the barbecue ran out, Plan D was subs. We finished the first stop with about 5 subs left. That's good, because Plan E was gonna be shake their hand and tell them God loves you, hope you enjoy your energy drink!
We saw 51 people at the first stop. That's easily double from a year ago.



So....the Tomato, Meatball, and Rice soup. That's what we had at the 2nd stop.

We wound up with too much rice in it. (Right now Gary McKnight is laughing at me as he reads this,) It was not the savory concoction I was envisioning. Y'all, that rice soaked up a lot of liquid. I also let it sit in the serving cooler too long. It was thick sticky tomato rice with meatballs. It was still pretty good, just not what I was seeing in my head.

Next time I'm gonna make the rice separate and keep it separate. We'll put it into a bowl and pour the Tomato Meatball soup over it.

And it's gonna gnaw at me 'til we do it again and I get it right.



Laura Johnson, Anna Tolar, and Twig Rollins are on the Guatemala Mission trip. Brien was sick and couldn't make it. Teresa was out of town. Randy is in Baltimore.

At one point I was looking at being the only adult there for a good part of the night. I don't have a problem with that except it's not the smartest way to to do it. We're downtown, we're separated at times....it helps to have more than one adult. I could do it, but I knew I shouldn't . I called Gary McKnight to see if he would come give me another set of eyes and ears. He said sure. Gary was a large part of making this ministry a success when it started. He was there every week and he brought his daughters. There were many nights he and I were the only adults there, and a couple of times when we were the only ones there. I will always be grateful for his support and help.

So I knew I had one and Steve always comes to the 2nd stop. It's cool,I thought, I can do this.

But I didn't have to.

About 6:10 Jane showed up with her son Hayden, and a few moments later Wayne Currie walked in and said Do you need me to stay and help?
I try to tell y'all how good God is to us. He provides food, resources, strength, miracles, etc....
He also provides help.
He did it tonight with Jane and Wayne. I didn't know they'd be there to help on the night I needed it. And he brought Gary Mcknight.
And they weren't just bodies. These are people that will get busy and stay busy. Large doses of help from God on a night when I needed it.
No surprise there. God has his Hand on this ministry and will continue to bless and provide for it. We need to make sure we're ready to receive it and be His hands and feet.

You might think I'm kidding, but how my soup turned out is gonna bug me. At least until I make up for it.

Hhhmmmm.....let's see...what would make up for tonight?

What would put me in a good mood?

What would get me excited about the meal we were gonna cook?

I know. You should know. It's the only meal that always gets CAPITAL LETTERS. We don't do it often so it's a big deal. It's the most requested meat on the street.

C'mon, let's all say it together.......

g

p.s. you can check out the folks in Guatemala on the trip blog.

http://fbcguatemalatrip.blogspot.com