Posted August 2, 2017 by HoneyRock
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Food
Our kitchen staff has a pretty tall order during the summer season. Not only do they need to feed all of the mouths that come through the Chrouser Hall doors (two shift’s worth of mouths, most days), they also need to make sure all of those dishes are done so that every table can be re-set in the 15 minutes between those meal shifts. Oh, and they need to do that three times per day. What’s amazing about this is that there is hardly ever a situation where there’s not enough food. The people in our kitchen are remarkable.
One of the inevitable results of feeding so many people, and making sure the food doesn’t run out in the process, is leftovers. Lots of leftovers. In the past, there wasn’t much we could do with them except throw them away. That all changed very recently under the vision and leadership of Thomas, our new food service manager. Moving forward, we are reducing our food waste, introducing processes to become more sustainable and partnering with nearby ministries to help in any way we can.
We’ve begun packing and freezing any usable leftovers from our meals in Chrouser with the intention of donating anything we can to whoever might need it. Thomas calls it “ministry food”. Almost right away, we were able to make a connection, through one of our summer kitchen-staff members, with a nearby ministry in Gaastra, MI called Mission Bible Training Center (MBTC). They run a discipleship training program and rehabilitation center that is offered at no cost to their participants. In fact, they’ve been fully funded by donors and gifts since the organization was founded in 1962. And just last month, on a rather unseasonably chilly Thursday afternoon, Ron and Steve, two gentlemen from MBTC came by to pick up a few week’s worth of frozen leftovers from the kitchen freezers. As I was talking to Steve, who is one of the directors, about their funding model, I was going to ask him, “so you’ll just go and go until you can’t?” He beat me to the punch and said, “we’ll be going until Jesus returns”. I liked that.
HoneyRock has the opportunity to serve all over the world, but we’re also aware of our place here in the Northwoods. We’re part of a neighborhood, in a sense, and with that comes the responsibility to engage in love. The fact that we’re proximate to, and able to partner with a ministry that does a different, though just as valuable, kind of work for the Kingdom is a living reality that life in Christ transcends organizational boundaries. We’re excited about this new initiative, and hope you will join us in praying for more opportunities to serve our community locally, as well as around the world.
You can learn more about Mission Teens, MBTC’s parent organization here.