I woke up not wanting to go as usual. As I showered, ate some yogurt, and applied my eyeliner I knew, I always know that good things were going to happen, surprises, glimpses of Jesus. Once a month I join the volunteers at a small soup kitchen. I started going to speak dutch but then I just couldn't stop coming. This particular Friday started with hellos and kisses and warm dutch greetings (I hadn't been there in a couple months so we were extra excited to see eachother). We then sat down in our customary places to smear stacks and stacks and piles of bread. First butter (dutch style), then some with peanut butter, some jam, meat, egg, cheese, and chocolate hagelslag. After the sandwiches were done and the soup sizzling we satt down to tea and coffee, a devotion and some songs. I really have to concentrate then to catch the variety of strong southern and eastern dutch accents.

A half hour later the doors open and the place begins to hum. Hundreds of men and a few women sit and enjoy cups and cups of coffee and dozens of sandwiches. It's especially full in the cold weather. Some wait for a shower, others get clean clothes, and we all sit and talk and relate and be in our humanness together. I usually have a hard time being one of the few women and usually the youngest. I feel strange... I worry that when I'm kind and cheerful and interested in the men's lives, that it's taken the wrong way.

I now remember a talk Eric gave a couple months ago on giving. I will never forget this talk. It hit me in the gut. Sometimes we think, oh we shouldn't give money to people, they may buy drugs, etc. and he spoke right to that mentality by quoting C.S. Lewis.. who said something like, it's better to be thought a sucker, to be taken in by someone who didn't really need money, thinking they would just drink it away - than to keep it, since it would have been better to just have drunk the money ourselves. It's better to be taken in by someone who didn't need money than to miss one person who has real need.

And I thought, it's the exact same thing here... my part, what God calls me to do give love and relate with anyone he puts in front of me. I don't have to worry if they're taking it the wrong way or not. God handles that part. He calls me to give and give and give boldly and generously.

And I was a different person that day... laughing and having fun in the kitchen (got a beautiful red paper rose from one sweet grandpa), had coffee with a man who was born in 1940. Through his rattly breathing he told me stories of what his parents experiences during the war and finally at one point he left unexpectedly. A half hour later he was back with newspapers from 1941, 1943, and 1945! All in dutch, all from papers that are still operating today. It was fascinating to look at the old pages, the articles on life during Nazi occupation, the end of the war, atomic bomb and so on. Finally he slid them across the table and said, they're for you, take them and show your parents. He wouldn't let me refuse. I was so honored.

I walked away that day overwhelmed, thinking... so that's how it's supposed to work! There's such joy and freedom in that kind of giving!