give thanks

thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. i mean, other than reflecting on all of the reasons we have to be thankful, let's be honest...it's about food. and good food at that. mashed potatoes definitely make it on my all time favorite food list! this year we had planned on spending thanksgiving with friends, like usual, but were going to move our dinner to saturday because we had volunteered to serve at the union gospel mission in downtown seattle.

our day looked a little like this: kiah woke up at his usual time around 7am, and eric had left before 6 that morning to workout and go to men's morning prayer. kiah and i hung out until daddy came home, played some more, and he went down for his nap. then the real work began. eric helped me cut up some green beans, i toasted my bread in the oven for stuffing, and we set about cleaning up the mess we were creating. kiah woke up, green bean casserole was warming in one oven, and stuffing cooking in the other. eric and kiah headed over to sam & jen's while i went for a quick run and packed up the food. i joined the party and found the place full of food and yummy smells!

we put the kiddos down for a nap and sat down to enjoy the fruits of our labor. it was delicious! sam did a great job with his first turkey and everything else was pretty darn good too! it was time to go too soon but the delay's were awesome and offered to watch kiah while we were serving. we had been planning on taking him with us and eric would wear him in the ergo, but he was still asleep and we were a little worried about people trying to touch him all the time. in the end i am SO glad we didn't take him; it would have been really difficult running around like that with him. plus he probably would have thrown a fit about being in the ergo for that long.

the union gospel mission has been around for quite awhile in seattle. i think they said it started in 1932. they run a day shelter with pastries, coffee, and bathrooms. at night they offer beds for about 100 men, who are required to shower and can stay for free unless they come back for multiple nights in a row, in which case it costs $5/night. one of the coolest things they do though is their addiction recovery program. the program takes up to 25 men at a time and has had a waiting list in the past. participants can leave whenever they like so it is completely voluntary, and the gospel is a main component of the program. the guys in the program stay in dorm rooms and they all have "jobs" in the building. eric had some cool conversations with a few of the "program guys"; got to hear their stories and encourage them.

in our aprons!

anyway...as volunteers we were assigned our own jobs for the next dinner shift,  got a tour of the building, and then were welcomed to eat with the program guys before the doors opened. i was so stuffed from our lunch i decided to pass. pretty soon it was 5pm and time for dinner! the line of primarily men came in and sat down. my assigned job was to replace soup packets on the table when the seats emptied, but i think i did a little bit of everything. the kitchen was a bit slow at churning out plates of food but we ran them when they were ready, grabbed drinks, napkins, pie...whatever they requested we (mostly) filled. i did ask a guy what he would like to drink and he replied "you got any dos equis?" i tried not to laugh and responded we didn't have any of those here to which he said he would take a cola. at least he had good taste in beer! ;)

dinner ran from 5-6pm and then the doors were closed. we helped clean up a bit, passed out handmade knit hats/beanies to those who wanted them, and had a really neat conversation with a guy named maurice who asked us what church we attended. eric gave him the address for mars hill downtown and he gave eric his phone number. (side note: i was amazed at how many of these homeless guys had cell phones! i'm not sure how that works but i was surprised.) we left to go rescue sam and jen from kiah, but not before eric had a marketing conversation with the guy who runs the place. i think they're going to meet for lunch soon :).

it was such a rewarding experience; we are definitely going to do that again. everyone was really nice and no one grouched at us, although i had somewhat expected to be grouched at at least once! the men were very thankful and appreciative and it was humbling to know how excessively God has blessed us with material things. a good and sobering reminder to steward well His gifts at all times during the year, and especially during the holidays!

happy thanksgiving!