How to Find A Work Site

So part of my job entails a lot of what I'll call the "behind the scenes" work.

Hours spent in the office making phone calls to youth pastors,

digging through our work shed

making meal plans, recipe guides, and shopping lists

Then the long drives to our sites and set-up. 

Not only do we buy ridiculousness amounts of food -

feeding 15-25 people takes "a lot of bread" (as the patient woman behind us in the check-out line put it)

But we also must find enough manual labor (that is at the right challenge level) for a team - or in our case this weekend, two teams (one with 15 members and one with 25).

Julie and I were both excited and very hopeful as we headed drove the 9 hours down to Memphis, TN. Julie had spent all of last summer at this site and was chopping at the bit to see old friends and continue to deepen relationships. She'd spent the past several weeks making phone calls and connections to find possible work sites and maybe even some ministry outreach. She'd gotten several positive replies and all we had to do was check them out to ensure they fit our program.
We arrived Thursday night and spent most of Friday relaxing thinking there was plenty of time and everything was pretty much planned.

Unfortunately God decided to send us a big wake-up call this morning. Julie awoke to several text messages relaying the big news to her...

We could not use any work project we had initially been planning on.

8AM and we were starting from scratch. 

All throughout the day God continually brought my mind to the story of His feeding the 5,000. This story was so important that it is included in all four of the gospels, but I especially love John's version found in chapter six.

Why do I love this version?

Because of verse 5-6

"When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, 'Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?' He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do."

I feel like God is testing us right now. I feel like he is asking me,

"Heather, where do you think you can find a work site for 15 people (and then 25 for the next week)?" 

And I've looked at my physical capabilities just like Philip did when he commented that it would take too much money to buy bread for all the people. Our physical capabilities say we've exhausted all of our contacts and there are no BIG work projects to be found.

With the help of our missionary partners we met two people today who are in need of some "minor" help. To me, it looks a little like 5 loaves of bread and 2 fishes. A backyard clean up here, a tilling of a garden there, a trash clean up down the road... Not enough to keep a whole team occupied for a week.

But God promises something BIG through this story -

HE PROVIDES! 

The disciples had everyone sit down and they began to pass out their meager amount of food - and they continued to pass it out - and they continued... "until everyone had had enough to eat"
And then what happens? Jesus has the disciples go around and pick up the excess and there were
12 baskets of leftovers.

So here I sit in Memphis, TN, with a pretty meager list of possible jobs we can do this week,
and all I can do right now is pray.

Pray with the knowledge that God is faithful. 

Pray with the knowledge that if he feed over 5,000 people with that meager meal, that he will fill the hands of 35 people with work that will build his Kingdom from a meager work site list.

Pray that through his provision lives will be changed and Kingdom work will be accomplished.

And pray that even in the "behind the scenes" work that his Name is GLORIFIED!