Loaves and Fishes

Saturday morning I woke up early and started preparing the meal for our dinner in the park that afternoon. I figured on serving about fifty or sixty people, our numbers vary and lately we had only needed enough to serve about that amount. As I was fixing my totes with the various things we would need to serve, I grabbed a sleeve of plates and then started to put another in the tote, but then thought I will only need one of these, but then again thought what the heck and threw in the second. Okay at this point you need to understand that each sleeve contains 150 plates. My son and I then loaded up the truck and headed to the park.


As we turned into the park my son says, “My God look at the people.” I looked around and panic rushed through me like you wouldn’t believe. There were people everywhere in the park waiting on us to serve the meal. We don’t have enough food, I don’t know what to do right at this point, “what do I do...what do I do” is all I say. Then I thought well Lord I am giving this one to you, I am not going to panic over this and you let me know what you want me to do.

So we unloaded the truck and shortly afterward the Tonya, Jim and Ashley show up. As Tonya is getting out of the car, part of the salad she brought fell on the ground. So now we have even less food. Rachel then showed up and thankfully brought a pasta salad with her, but it still would not make up for the amount of food it would take to feed this crowd. At this point I thought lets start serving and see what happens.

So we began dishing up plates and didn’t really hold back on the amount, just dished it up. The line never seemed to end. More and more people kept showing up and even had some coming back for seconds, plus those one’s who will take a to go plate for later. As the last person went thru the line, I looked over to the last pan of food and there was still enough in there for another two or three servings. I looked at Tonya; she looked up at me and said, “I think we just a loaves and fishes kind of day.” How those words hit me later on that day. I thought back to what just happened in the park and realized what the Lord just did.

Remember the sleeves of plates; well we went through a whole sleeve (150 plates) and then some. I had taken extra to go plates; about ten or fifteen, we used all that day. By the end of the day we had served up at least 170 servings of food and just to remind you remember I only made enough for about fifty or sixty people. You do the math. After it all sunk in that evening I sat and cried over the goodness of God and was filled with the excitement of being able to see and witness exactly what our Lord did… the story of the loaves and fishes happening before my eyes.

The Lord’s blessings didn’t just end there that day. I picked up Gerald after the park. There is a friend who was formally homeless, but now has a place. Gerald said he just had double bypass surgery and wanted to take some food to him. So we ran by the church and fixed him up a box of food, took it to him and let him know that if he needed more we would bring it by. We don’t have much on our shelves right now as far as a food pantry goes, but it is getting there and we wanted to bless our friend with as much as we could. As I arrived at the church this morning the box we have out to collect food for the pantry was over flowing on to the floor. Once again tears welled up in my eyes and I just stood and stared at that box. A few people said look at all the food today; once again I could only stand in amazement of what the Lord had done. Thinking about all we read about in the bible and the things Jesus did and realizing he is still doing those things today… we just need to have our eyes open to see it!