"A purposeful plan" - Tim Brown

I'm usually pretty task-oriented. Just ask my wife about how I clean. I don't even like to be interrupted at home in the middle of vacuuming the stairs until the job is completed. It is only THEN that am I happy to change tasks or be excited about a distraction. One of my favorite classes in college at Concordia was entitled "Operations Mangement," in which I learned about process maps, quality, supply chains and much much more. Yesterday at the food bank, I took some time to work with the youth on how to run a more efficient process to improve our overall output. It was evident to me early on that this needed some work! We had to open boxes that had already been packed with a variety of food items for low-income seniors to include an extra bag of elbow macaroni and tape the boxes back up again. It didn't look too bad-- until I found out that there were THIRTEEN pallets of "mistake" boxes that needed adjustment! I reorganized some of the youth after noticing their strengths, identified our bottle necks (areas where work got backed up), and even asked for pallets of cereal to be moved as to streamline the walk that Jonah made probably a thousand times from the location where the palletized boxes were to the area in which others were inserting that extra package of macaroni. I'll tell you, I was proud at the end of our two hours of service to find out that we had corrected over 6 pallets worth of boxes that were stacked nearly 6 foot high! I felt accomplished.

I found myself struggling, however, at our morning work site, where we went to meet with residents of an adult care facility. The first day, I found myself looking for work, asking if I can assist with coffee service, cleaning up messes, or gathering residents from down the hall for activities. The more I pushed for work, the more I got push-back from the staff. One of the employees yelled at me for trying to refill a coffee carafe.

"If I get burned, I'm covered. If you get burned, it's a lawsuit!" snapped the activities coordinator. I was angry! Didn't they know we were with a church youth group? No one here wants to find a quick lawsuit. We're just here to help! (I also got yelled at later for taking some of the pictures you see on previous posts in this blog!)

That's when I realized that I needed to come back to the basics and look around. The kids, who were nervous at first about interacting with the residents, were all perched next to a resident, enjoying some one-on-one time. Visiting the care facility isn't about physical labor - they PAY people to take care of those things. We were there to foster relationships, especially one-on-one relationships, that many of these people were lacking! It was time to slow down and take a lesson from the kids who saw where the importance REALLY was in our time at the care facility. I met some amazing people with amazing stories - people that just needed a friend to chat with. One such person was named Peggy, a 72 year-old woman. Peggy has lived at the care facility for a year and five months. She has suffered four strokes, but you'd certainly never know it from talking to her. She's as sharp as a sword, as witty as they come, and ornery beyond belief (self-admittedly so!) Not only was I able to take a break from running around doing "busy" work (we had enough of that ahead at the food bank), I met a friend, had a whole bunch of laughs, and brightened someone's day!

God has made us all different, and it's been carefully planned out that way. Some are better suited to being highly productive in a labor-intensive environment, others are gifted in areas like relationship-building or counseling. Some are better at creating new ideas to change the world like scientists, or even gifted in speech like our pastors and teachers. We all play an important role with our skills and gifts, and that doesn't mean we can't participate in the other areas, but sometimes we might need to rely on our peers, team mates or fellow Christians for some help.

I know that God loves me, the process-oriented nerd, just as much as the relationship builders. Neither one of those gifts and skills is better than another, they're just useful at different times. Thankfully, He has purposefully planned it that way!