Dirty Hands, Happy Hearts

It was a small group of six who came from Ascension Lutheran Church, located on the West side of El Paso, to help serve on Friday morning by putting together over 200 food baskets to give out for the weekly food distribution on Saturday morning. After a bit of translation, Marisa De Santiago, one of YLM’s long-time volunteers, had them all organized and working hard, everything set out assembly line style for us.

“That’s a lot of food they’re getting,” Barb Spott, a long-time member of Ascension Lutheran and chair of the Board of Stewardship, commented as she set out bags of rice, lentils, beans, and walnuts along the length of the table where food is grouped for over 25 bags at a time. With each food ‘basket’ containing cereal, rice, beans (three different kinds), lentils, peanut butter, walnuts, and other sundry items meant to last for a week or two, it did indeed seek like a lot of food –and that wasn’t counting the extra items stored in the small walk-in refrigerator in the back of the YLM Dining Hall, all of which were to be given out on Saturday!

At the end three hours, the count had been lost and the smiles had grown despite the heat, weariness and dirty hands left behind. “That was a lot of work,” Mariann, another long-term member of Ascension, stated as she gave a tired smile, “But it was definitely rewarding.”

The rewards of service continued for this group the next morning, when thirteen of them showed up early and eager to get to work in helping with the distribution set to start at 10 in the morning. After a brief tour of the YLM campus, as several of them had never been there before, they were all surprised and full of questions regarding all that is done at YLM and through YLM. Settling in to wait for the warehouse to open, they watched as people started lining up along either side of the closed warehouse door.

The quick distribution of jobs and explanation on how the distribution was to take place, everyone got to work, handing out food baskets with big smiles, along with eggs, watermelon, corn on the cob and frozen pulled pork. Several of the men made trip after trip to vehicles, carrying boxes heavy with food. Despite the inability to communicate due to language barriers, smiles and head nods were enough to translate into gratitude and compassion.

These volunteers witnessed as person after person –young, elderly, with children and with disabilities –walked away with heavy loads and big smiles. Those who stayed within the warehouse kept the flow of food baskets and extra food items moving at a steady pace for the two-line system set up by Marisa De Santiago.

At the end of it all, everyone was exhausted, not to mention dirty, but each and every one of them had a smile full of joy and accomplishment.

“I’ve already had people come up to me to let me know they would like to participate the next time we do this. Those who went want to do it again, as well,” Spott shared the Sunday after this service-full weekend, “And we definitely want to do this again.”

Rev. Bestian, Pastor at Ascension Lutheran, explained why the Board of Stewardship had taken on this endeavor of volunteering time and talent at YLM, “Stewardship is more than responsibly managing money or giving money to those in need. Stewardship is also about managing and giving of our time, our talents and skills. It’s about giving all we are, and not just what we have, to our neighbor in need.  YLM is a wonderful place to be able to put our faith into action, where we can be missionaries to the people living in our very own backyard!”

At YLM, there’s definitely so many opportunities to be missionaries to others through the hard work of our hands, the loving compassion of our hearts seen through our smiles, and the joyful thanks of our service for we’ve been greatly blessed beyond the material things we own.  This wonderful group from Ascension Lutheran Church in West El Paso, Texas are not the first, nor will they be the last, to walk away with dirty hands and happy hearts.