So often, the things that lie just outside our comfort zones are the things that bring us the most joy and fulfillment.
I am not a shy person, but that doesn’t mean it necessarily feels comfortable to knock on the door at a soup kitchen and ask, “Do you guys need any help?”
But as always, I was glad I did, especially when I was greeted with a warm and welcoming, “Of course we do!”
If ever there was a place where one could set foot and immediately be swamped with love, it’s Your Father’s Kitchen on Sugartree Street in Wilmington. Its modest appearance belies its ever-increasing impact as it feeds, clothes, shelters, counsels and ministers to people in need in the community. But perhaps most impactful is the feeling of hope and warmth that surrounds you when you come in the door.
“A lot of people don’t realize everything we do here.”
Lee, the director, had found me spreading butter across a pan of cornbread fresh out of the oven. He explained that along with serving a free dinner five nights a week, Your Father’s Kitchen is also a free food pantry and a place for people to come in need of anything.
Lee points to the calendar tracking the number of meals served. Anywhere from 40 to 130 people are served nightly.
“We help people with addiction, we help them find jobs, we try to connect them with what they need,” Lee told me.
The ministry’s adjacent coffee shop, Joe’s Java, acts as a stopgap for people who have nowhere to go.
“It gets people out of the elements. They can eat dinner here, then go to the coffee shop and be warm and have a hot drink until the homeless shelter across the street opens,” Lee explained.
I was working in the industrial-size kitchen with three volunteers who regularly thanked me for helping out. Multiple dinners a month are sponsored by local churches and businesses. The sausage, potatoes and beans tonight were provided by GreenCore.
While Lee and I talked, the doorbell rang.
“Oh, that’s dessert!” Lee said.
An elderly man was at the door with six cartons of chocolate milk and two gallons of ice cream. We helped him haul it in as another volunteer opened boxes of Little Debbie cosmic brownies for the dessert tray.
The delicious aroma of green beans and cornbread wafted through the kitchen as all of us gathered to hold hands and pray before the doors opened. As soon as we’d prayed, we readied our stations and the doors opened.
I teamed up with the little girl next to me to place slice after slice of cornbread on the plates as they whooshed by. The volunteers who served came by in cycles, ensuring that everyone in the dining area had a full plate of dinner and then dessert.
Dinnertime flew by. I stayed to help fill a few requests for to-go orders for people bringing food home for their children or parents. Four volunteers were already in the dish pit washing the dishes. In no time, everything was done.
There wasn’t anything else left to do, but oddly I didn’t feel like leaving.
“I’m trying to do things outside of my comfort zone,” I’d told Lee when explaining my October challenge.
“Well I hope this gets into your comfort zone,” he’d said.
It has, I thought, as the door swung open and I stepped out into the evening air.