Last Monday I did my first serve at Feed My Starving Children. I have done it a couple times with my church and I have always had a good time. When I signed up for the serve I reserved spots for my family and two extra for my friends also in sociology classes. For weeks in advance I tried to describe what it would be like, but it was very difficult. When we got to the site, it was exciting because I knew that this was FMSC's newest location and I was anxious to see what it was like. We started out by watching a video that showed stories of children that have been helped by the food and clips of previous volunteers serving. Next we moved on to the tables where a women explained the process. My family moved to table #2 and another family joined us. The mom was pregnant, so she went to sit down and help put labels on the bags the groups would be filling with food. My sister and my friend were in charge on putting the vegetarian chicken flavored powder, dehydrated vegetables, soy, and rice into the bags that I held under the funnel. Next, we weighed the food to make sure it was between 380 and 400grams. Then my mom sealed the bags and handed them off to the other family. The dad was so kind and energetic the entire time, he was joking around and making us laugh. It was really sweet to see him go walk across the room to check on his wife three or four times during the serve. The kids were adorable, they were jumping up and down. At one point, I was looking over and I saw one of the kids turn to my mom and say, "I am having so much fun" Half way through we switched up the jobs and i was in charge of chicken and veggies. I guess we had gotten used to the previous positions and were all now off because I dumped a big scoop of chicken down the funnel only to see it hit the table. No one had a bag ready and I hadn't even noticed. We all laughed, but I still felt bad because It was wasted food some one is depending on. Every time we finished a box of food, we had to shout something creative. The father of the other family had us shout "OLE!" through out the hour and a half were worked it was great to hear my friends who hadn't been there before say to me "This is so much fun, we should really do this again" or "I"m going to go home and check out the website to see what days are open." A worker told us that recently they had lost a shipment of meals. It was devastating. So, my favorite part of this experience came at the end when they placed of of the boxes the tables had made onto a pallet and all of the kids went up and placed our hands on the boxes. A little girl prayed over the food and It was moving to hear her just continually thanking God for the food, for the volunteers, and for the children that this food is going to. I opened my eyes and looked to the back of the warehouse and pallets and pallets just lines the wall. It made me think about all of the times I was hungry and said "I am starving!" or was picky about where I went out to eat. How selfish of me. Who am I that I deserve a choice in my food, while there are kids across the globe that depend on one meal a day that comes from a plastic bag in a cardboard box just to survive.
This is the video they showed us!
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