Sense memory kicks in as soon as I walk into the pantry, then the kitchen trailer. I know this smell, even though I can’t describe it. Is it the building materials themselves? It’s not a cooking smell, not an unpleasant smell…just distinctive. It smells exactly as it did in July, when I was at Hope City the first time.
5:00 am felt too early, even though we’d crossed a time zone and gained back that elusive hour that sprang away last week up in Indiana. The coffee was already percolating when I stumbled through the dark dining commons. Time to make banana bread out of a pile of really prime fruit that someone had thoughtfully left for us.
Butter and sugar, flour and eggs, applesauce, lots and lots of bananas. Two dozen muffins. Start over. Two dozen more. Scramble the eggs. The coffee pot is empty. The big urn? Already? Is the juice supposed to be half-frozen? This is how you put the lunch meats on the trays…makes it easier to make sandwiches quickly, and insures nobody takes too much at a time. There’s a green spot on this slice of bread. Are we out of eggs? Is that real ham or turkey ham? What time did you get up, anyway? Are you going to eat? No, not feeling hungry right now.
And then, after two hours of steady motion, concentration, flowing back and forth from kitchen to dining room…”There is the most gorgeous sunrise out there.” (Thank you, Paula.)
Out the back door. What a glorious breeze coming in off the water. I walk to where I can see orange streaks of sky between two of the trailers. Parallel lines of cloud like spirit fingers writing on the pinkened air. A low cloud of sea birds circles low over the water, rises and creates a larger wheel, like a liturgy there on the dawn sky. It looks like dance, like worship. I remember why I’m here.
Shopping for bargains. Buddy runs a tight ship down here. Bless him, Lord. He’s full of fun, but in dead earnest about saving money, using every penny wisely. What a steward. We’ve been to the bread outlet, seen the Food Bank, visited Sam’s Club, waved at Wal-Mart and Save-a-Lot (“See you tomorrow!”).
Huge pans of lasagna…laughing with Linda (a long-term missionary down here with her whole family) over spilling red jello in the fridge…do-it-ourselves garlic toast…is there any more salad? Finally, a chair and a real meal today. Our team is sore and tired (pray for Ian Cook who got far too much sun) and hungry. Cleaned us out of toast and salad, polished off three enormous lasagnas…and then those dear and weary friends did the dinner dishes for us. Deep breath…go start breakfast. Peeling apples for the french toast casserole, talking to hubby on my cell phone. (How can it be a local call, when I’m here and he’s way up there?) Done at last, 8:00 pm. 14 hours logged on the timesheet.
Common room is rowdy…two different card games going on, plus computer users, a reader or two. Stopped everything to pray for Paul Kayser, whose mother in law is seriously ill. He may have to fly home. Checked e-mail…didn’t miss too much in two days.
Lights are out now. My companions asleep. The wind has picked up and ripples over this trailer as if giant’s towels were being shaken over our heads. There are no trees touching this building…why does it sound like branches hitting the windows? I’d hate to be down here in a hurricane.
Yes. And that’s why I am down here. Because what the wind and rain and ocean tide did were hateful…and what somehow seemed intended for evil and permanent destruction, God is using for good by flooding this battered place with His people, who bring warmth and willingness to work, kind words and kitchen supplies and arms and backs and legs and…we are so much more than the sum of our parts. We are a work of the Spirit, who blows where He wills.
Laurie Nichols
