I think I'm leaning towards a soup tonight. It's gonna be around 45 degrees tonight.

How does Tomato Rice and Meatball with a slice of cheese on top sound? With a bottle of Texas Pete standing by?
And if I can get some Sausage, deer or otherwise, it's going in there, too.
A little bread, piece of dessert, and some sweet tea.....suddenly, it's a wonderful day in the neighborhood.

We'll see.
Remember, right now this is my plan.
I might get hit by God's somewhere between here and 6:00.

g

P.S.

Pretty wide open as far as what we're gonna cook this week. Can't think of anything I'm dying to try that we haven't done yet. It is supposed to get down into the 40's tomorrow night so that's going to play a factor in what we cook, I guess.

Wonder how they'd react if we did CHEESE GRITS two weeks in a row?



If anybody reading this has any ideas for meals and recipes, feel free to post and share them. Anyone with experience cooking for large groups (lunch ladies, mess cooks, Octomom), share your knowledge.



These are some things I'd like to try sometime though:

Porcupine Meatballs

Burritos

Tomato Meatball soup

Corn Chowder

Baked Potato soup

Anything else with Meatballs in it

Later.

g

....The Miami Giants!

ELAINE / ELLEN / ALYSSA / CECELIA / MAGGIE / MADDY / WAYNE / STEVE / BLAKE / LAURA / TERESA / ANNA / RANDY / J.BOGGS / CHRISTIAN / MIKE / MERRITT / CREEEEECH! / ALEXIS / MARK / TYLER / MEREDITH / and me had a blast in the kitchen and out on the street tonight being God's hands and feet.
Twig and Brien were out of town. Twig, Anna and Laura will all be gone next week on the mission trip to Guatemala.

You know me. Without anyone to answer to about what we're cooking, I hold out and make a 4:30 (and sometimes later) decision. Today I actually made it about 2:30 when Mr. Taylor told me somebody had given us 25 lbs. of deer sausage. I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I've been wanting to do it for a long time and just hadn't pulled the trigger.
wait for it......wait for it.... here it comes...almost there..... CHEESE GRITS !
I already had two 5lb. bags of grits in the pantry, so all i needed now was some eggs and cheese. a quick little run to Sam's and we were good to go.
The sausage was not ground bulk but in long casings. It was pretty funny watching Maddy and Maggie cutting it up. I'm pretty sure they weren't even aware of deer sausage as a concept, never mind having seen or eaten it before.

Things in the kitchen could not have gone much better tonight. One of the reasons why is J. Boggs. He has become my right hand guy for things that need to be done outside of the kitchen.
We have storage space under the Harrelson Center next door and that's where we keep our tables, coolers, paper goods, etc. J. Boggs make that run for me and anything else that needs to be gotten out of there. That freed me up tonight to stay in the kitchen and keep things moving in there, especially with Twig not there.
Another reason is because all the kids were great. Every one of them did a great job at the tasks we had tonight. Mark and Christian manned the griddle to get the sausage cooked. Maggie was in charge of getting the grit water to a boil and stirring them in. Elaine, Alyssa, Merritt and Ellen cracked 180 eggs to go into the grits. Cecelia washed cutting boards and worked the eggs for me. Everybody was outstanding tonight.

And poor Teresa and Anna. Cooking grits is messy. Even when you try not be (and we don't), it just is. Bless their hearts, they soaked pots, wiped tables, and just generally cleaned up behind us the whole time. Love 'em to death. If roles were switched I'm pretty sure they could do what I do, but I'm not sure I could do their job as well as they do.

We used 25 lbs. of deer sausage, 10 lbs. of grits, 180 eggs, and a huge can of cheese sauce to make 14 gallons of cheese grits. That's right -14 gallons! And we served out almost every bit of it. We had just a little left and I sent that home with somebody. I love not having leftovers!

Tonight was really fun. I wasn't here last week. I was at an FCA banquet. It was great to be back in the kitchen with everybody tonight.

You've heard people say you can't out-give God. It's true. It has been amazing and humbling the way he has met our needs and beyond the past few weeks since our freezer died and we lost most of our meat. We've gotten hamburgers, hot dogs, deer burger, barbeque, deer sausage, and other meats to fill the need.
Somebody gave me 6 cans of refried beans yesterday. I don't know if we can wait 'til Cinco de Mayo to use those.
I also know you can't over-praise God , either. He is so good and so faithful, the praise we give and reflect doesn't do Him justice.
I mentioned Randy a couple of weeks ago, about how God was providing for him. In the two weeks since I'd seen him, God had done even greater things in his life. He has done so well at his job at the cabinet shop, they are going out of their way to compensate him beyond the paycheck he receives. He moves into an apartment on Wednesday and gets a company truck to drive outside of work, also. God is doing great things in his life and he readily admits it's God at work and not him.

We see some really off the wall stuff. We get people wearing all kinds of stuff, we get people that look as unkempt as you can imagine, we get it all. We also get our share of folks who are "under an influence".
Lubed.
Think it's Beer-Thirty.
And I can handle that. I'm not naive or simple enough to think that's not gonna come around out there.
But ....there's one thing that absolutely irks me like nothing else. And a couple of the folks that help have picked up on it and I think they enjoy watching me when it happens.
It just grates all over me when people clearly under the influence start acting "spiritual". Talking about how good God is, and God bless this and psalms this and I go to this church and on and on and on, like nobody can tell they've been drinking. That just rubs me like sandpaper. To me it's just profane and blasphemous and I literally have to get far away or...else. But it's a lot of fun for the ones who see it coming because I don't do well when they're around. I start cutting my eyes at everything, giving one word answers to everything, wanting nothing more than for them to just get their food and GO. But their the ones who want to stop and "preach" and "give glory", even while everyone can see they're in the bag.
Those times are not my finest reflection of Christ. Lord, help me in those times.

And then there's the goofy and the funny.
There was a guy at the first stop tonight with a big ol' drum-like bongo sorta thing. I think they're called jombays or something. And he looked like he'd be carrying one - dreadlocks, tie-dye shirt, a pair of Jerusalem cruisers. Anyway, I'm welcoming everybody and getting ready to say grace, when he goes to beating on it . The old -timers started jumping on him and telling him to quit. Then while we're serving, he starts beating on it again. I slid over and just kind of quietly said how bout holding off on that til you get your bowl and have eaten. He said ok and then asked how'd you like it though? Did it sound good?
I said yeah man, not bad. What I really wanted to say was you're stoned and beating on one bongo with one hand. How do YOU THINK it sounds? But I didn't. Yay for me.

Then at the next stop, Steve sees a guy with a jacket sporting a team logo on it. Steve says something to the effect of is that your team? The guy goes NO, here's my team and throws the jacket open to reveal a Washington Redskins jersey. Steve messes with him a little bit about the 'skins and the guy says Guess who my real team is? Steve says who? The guy puffs out his chest and says......

....makes me want to do it.

Didn't post last week. Wound up taking someone home after we were done and I started on something else and.......oh well. Last week was good. We had hot dogs and served out a ton of them.

John Liverman brought by some baked chicken and roast beef by the kitchen today, which was just right for the first stop. We did cheeseburgers for the 2nd. It all worked out. God has been great to us since our meat freezer went out and we lost all our meat we had saved up. We haven't missed a beat and God's grace and goodness is the reason. Keep praying for us as God continues to provide resources and opportunities to be his Hands and Feet on Tuesday nights.

If you had been here tonight you would have seen CREECH! / ALEXIS / CECELIA / J.BOGGS / CHRISTIAN / JENNY / TYLER / ELAINE / BRIEN / TWIG / TERESA / RANDY / ALLISON / BLAKE / STEVE / LAURA / doing a great job for the Kingdom

Randy came for the first time last week. Jim Everette brought him in and introduced us. Randy was recently homeless and came to Wilmington from Whiteville to finish some chemo treatments for cancer. He'd been to church the Sunday before and told Jim he wanted to be around people and active, so Jim sent him our way. He was about 30 minutes early so we got in the truck and went up to the store to get a coke. This gave me time to ask questions and find out stuff about him. Divorced, carpenter/cabinet maker, used to live at Wrightsville Beach, been sleeping on the porch of an abandoned house a few blocks away. He said he was looking for work and would do anything. His disability had been approved but wouldn't start until 3 weeks into October. I've got a decent B.S. detector and nothing he said or did triggered it. He was a big help in the kitchen and handy with most things we did.
We put together a bag of hot dogs and some other things to take with him. I dropped him off that night near the porch he was sleeping on and that was hard for me.

"See ya. Have fun on your porch. I'm going home and getting in a dry bed".
?
How much do you do for someone right off the bat?
Everybody's been burned in situations like that and it makes you gun shy.
I prayed for him as I dropped him off and then whenever he came to mind during the week.

I'm very thankful for a God who is full of grace and mercy and looks after people when I fall short.
How awesome is God when he uses ordinary and difficult situations to meet needs.
Check this out.
Randy got sick from sleeping out in the wet and had to go to the doctor. Because of his weakened state after chemo, they sent him to the hospital and kept him overnight.

At first you might think 'That sucks" and figured things had gotten worse.
Except God was in this and working.
In the hospital Randy's nurse got to talking to him and her husband owns a Cabinet shop and she got him a job with him.
AND her brother-in-law owns a marina on the river and is letting Randy stay there in a big panel truck where he has use of the shower and bathroom facilities at the marina.
One of the guys at the cabinet shop comes in from Leland everyday and picks him up and brings him back from work.
He even got a free haircut in the hospital.

Randy came and helped us again this week. He and I made the store run again for a coke and he told me everything that had happened since last week and I was just floored at how great God is. Randy's a pretty smart guy and a lot of help. He keeps mentioning how nice the kids are that help. I hope he keeps coming. He's already scouted out a place to stay when his disability check comes and his paychecks at the cabinet shop become regular.

A story like this is so good partly because we see guys every week with stories that you know are a little less than the truth. Guys who are looking for a short term bail out and have lies to try and get it. Guys who will never get out of their situations. Some because they lack resources. Some because they are limited in their capacities to function. And some because they don't want to. There are a couple of guys we feed every week and we've fed them every week since the first night we started. This is how they live and will continue to do so. That mindset is tough to reconcile with.
But I don't have reconcile with it.

What I have to do is take the attitude of a servant and consider their needs whether I think they are being honest with me or not. I have to show them Jesus whether it's pouring tea or squirting Texas Pete.

It's not easy. But remembering and accepting the Grace and Mercy showed to me ..........

....calls from the parents any time now.

Got a call from Twig today around lunchtime.
Our freezer downtown, full of chicken, ground beef and our other meats, quit working sometime early in the weekend. Tim, the custodian, went in the kitchen this morning and saw a puddle in front of the door. Poor guy. He opened it and was hit with the smell of a freezer full of meat gone bad.
And then, he cleaned it up.
He could've called us and we'd have gone down there and done it.
He should've.
But because he's a great guy, he just went ahead and took care of it.
Tim's the Man.

So.......that was a lot of meat.
We try to stockpile things like chicken and ground beef until we have enough to do something or for special occasions. We'd just put up about 25 lbs of BBQ.
But it's okay.
First of all .....things happen. Mechanical mishaps never let you know they're coming. They just break down and you deal with it.
Secondly..... we had tonight taken care of and didn't miss a beat.
Most importantly...... every piece of meat in that freezer had been provided by God, and God has yet to fail us. He can replace everything we lost and more. Who knows? Maybe that's why this happened. He's got something coming and we're gonna need that freezer for something else.
I don't know. But I know God is still God and He'll take care of our needs.

BBQ CHICKEN
MACARONI AND CHEESE
CREAMED CORN
BREAD
FRUIT SALAD
WATERMELON
SWEET TEA / WATER

CECELIA / KATY / MICHAEL / ALEX / T.J. / MARK / PEYSON / BLAKE / ELAINE / BRIEN / TWIG / WADE / ELLEN / ALEXIS / WAYNE / STEVE / JOHANNA/ ALEXANDRA / CAMERON / DALLAS / CREEECH! / TYLER / CHRISTIAN / LAURA / and me got the opportunity to be God's hands and feet tonight.

Here's a strange combination for you: The folks we serve and Energy drinks.
We came into possession of about least 20 cases of SLAP FROST energy drink.
So as folks were leaving tonight we passed out 20 oz. cans of energy drinks. Just about everybody took one. I was wondering how they read the gesture. Did they think we felt they needed energy? Did they get the impression wanted them to get energized and do stuff?
I don't know.
I do know that the image of a bunch of homeless people walking around Wilmington in the middle of the night jacked up on energy drinks just makes me grin, though.
Glad I could help.

I also know know I let Cameron Elliot try one . He liked it. A lot. It's all I can do to take a swig of those things. I don't care for them.
I also gave Tim, the custodian, a case of them , sort of as a "Sorry you had to clean out the freezer" gesture. I guess it would have been nice for him to have had one before he did it, but.....


I let the kids split one around 8:30.
I should be getting.....

Look at the NavBar on the upper left of this page.

You might not have noticed it, but now there's a "SHARE" feature. Click it and it let's you send posts on this blog to FaceBook, Twitter, etc.

I don't know why you would, but you could.

Check it out.

..... just made that our little blog "secret".

I had to try and get to Food Lion last Tuesday before they closed because they had 10 lb. bags of chicken leg quarters on sale for 4 bucks. I figured I'd wait to post and try to get to it tomorrow and BOOM....it's a week later and I still haven't done it.

My bad.

Last week was great. I mentioned the week before that someone had graciously donated 3 Boston Butts. Well, I went to pick them up and by the time I got to the church, somebody donated 7 more! That's 10 total Boston Butts total.
Last week we chopped them up into BBQ and used half and saved half for another night.
I know we're in the EASTERN BBQ area and vinegar-based sauce is how we're supposed to do it, but our guys really like it when we mix it with Sonny's Sweet BBQ sauce and serve it wet.
We served almost 100 people last week.

This week we had meatball subs, but we did it a little different than usual. Instead of serving the meatballs whole, we quartered them to make it easier to eat and less likely to roll off the roll.
And we used top split hot dog buns so it would sit on the plate and hold the meatballs better. Our last wrinkle was instead of putting cheese on top of the sandwich, we opened the roll and put it in the bottom so it wouldn't fall everywhere and would melt faster.
What can I say? We're thinkers.

ELAINE / ANNA / BRIEN / TERESA / STEVE / TWIG / ALEX / KATIE / JENNY / CECELIA / BLAKE / LAURA / PEYSON / CAMERON / CHAMBERLAIN / EMORY /
MERRITT and me were at the first stop.

I wish you could see how good some of the youth are at interacting with our friends at the first stop. They do such a great job of listening and showing them how glad we are they came to eat with us.

The second stop started out with just six and added one as we got going. Having just a few is kinda good because everyone has something to do all the time and you don't have time to take your foot off the gas, it's just head down, non-stop, serve it 'til you look up and the line is gone and it's 20 after 9.

Just like back in the early days.

I can remember getting it done with just me, Gary McKnight and about 3 or 4 kids.

It seems like forever since we used to do it out in the kitchen at the Activity Center. We'd cook it (in the hottest kitchen in the world) pack it up, load it up and then drive the truck and a van downtown, unload it and serve it out. Then we'd load everything and everyone up and drive back to the Activity Center. It was a lot of doggone work and we had to hustle because we had to drive cross town. But I remember thinking we had to do it at the Activity Center because it was central and closer for parents to drop off and pick up kids. I thought doing it downtown would keep parents from bringing youth. Then the Activity Center renovation forced us downtown to the kitchen at the church anyway

I'm such a moron sometimes.

It worked out so well we decided not to even go back to the A.C. and its new kitchen when it was done. Losing kids because we were downtown? We had a string of weeks with 25+ kids for about a month this past summer! Parents drop off kids by the carload every week. We have a lot more youth participation than we did at the A.C.
Being downtown has been more successful than I ever thought it would.

And it had to be forced on me.

Forced on me because I figured success would be determined by my wisdom at planning and thinking I knew how things would work best. Forced on me because I was telling God stuff instead of asking Him stuff......I needed to quit overthinking and acting like I knew everything and let God lead.

I'm still trying to get better at that.

As far as my confession earlier about being a moron, I'd appreciate it if the 2 or 3 of you who read this .......