A great example of this collision has taken place this summer as Jodi Sulger and Alison Knight have taught a cooking class locally in Downtown. Jodi loves Jesus, children, and cooking. Alison also loves Jesus, children, and healthy eating. Jodi told us she wanted a way to teach kids to cook simple, affordable, and healthy meals, particularly kids whose dads may be out of the picture and whose moms may work in the evenings. She came up with the idea to approach a local organization that runs a summer day camp for older elementary and middle school students and ask them if she could come up with and teach such a class. She secured the funding and all of the required food and materials -- some coming from Origins and some coming from friends and people who loved her idea.
Each Tuesday, she and Alison have met at the Kroc Center in Greenville and have taught around 125 kids to make butter, cook bread, make quesadillas and salads and other foods, understand ingredients and the food pyramid, and better grasp the difference between eating and eating healthy. These two ladies did this not primarily so that all of these children and their families would come to Origins but because they love Jesus and people. I want to share Jodi's latest update and some photos.
Good evening, I'm sorry I didn't send out an update last week. We had a nice time last week with salads. More kids than I expected had a salad with a lot of veggies on it. We had the kids tearing meat, peeling eggs, filling bowls, washing lettuce, etc. to prep for the salad. Then they all got to walk through the line and take what they wanted.
Today we made pasta. Alison is a pro at making homemade sauce. She showed them all how to do it, and most of the kids picked sauce (odd for me since mine only want butter and cheese). We had them use spaghetti noodles to accent "thank you" notes for the members of Origins. I'm not sure how I should proceed with the notes. They are pretty fragile being made from construction paper, glue and noodles. However, some of the pictures are very well done. Is there a way to make a digital copy and shrink them to fit all or most of the cards onto a poster that we could then duplicate for the individuals who have donated items and maybe anyone else who wants a copy?
Again, I had several kids tell me they or siblings that have been in the class are making omelets or quesadillas at home. A couple of the adults have come to me for directions on making butter. My boss, Kim, told me her daughter (in the 7th grade class) had made dinner for their family last week and made them each a ham and cheese omelet.
I was able to introduce and give credit to the good people of Origins today while telling them why they were making the cards. It's hard to believe we have 2 weeks remaining. Next week we want to have them make recipe books. The Kroc Center is letting us have folders, and we will print up 4 pages for each recipe book. Next week the kids will get to put their books together and decorate them. The parents will have a nice keepsake, and the kids will be able to show them the recipes.
The week after that, they are having an end-of-summer banquet and at this point the kids will make desserts for it. That may change since the kids will make the treats 2 days before the banquet. I will have more information in a couple days. That will be our last week there.
I want to thank you again for your support in this endeavor. It has been so rewarding to see them use the information we have brought to them, and even more so to tell them today that the people of Origins love them without having ever even met them. If we make a difference in a handful of lives it's worth all the time and money and effort.
Love Jesus? Love people? What are you passionate about? What if those three loves and passions collided? Many more people would have a chance to hear and see the good news of Jesus through our intentional going than would otherwise. God has folks he wants to love and news he wants to share and lives he wants to change, and you may be the most equipped to do so. You certainly have knowledge, skill, passion, experiences, gifts that your pastor doesn't; you have been shaped and prepared, in fact, to do something in Jesus' name that no one else could do as well as you because you are uniquely shaped to go for it.
Thanks to Jodi and Alison for embodying that. The Kingdom of Jesus is not for people who sit idly on the sidelines; its for people who get in the game. In their case, love for the Kingdom, love for the neighborhood, and love for the kitchen collided, and Jesus has received great glory.
