Serving at Allied Churches Alamance County

There are many ways to serve here in Alamance County. One of the ways we're involved locally is through volunteering with Allied Churches Alamance County. ACAC is our county's only homeless shelter. It provides lunch and dinner for the general public (about 200 people per meal) Monday through Friday and three meals a day, seven days a week, for the shelter's residents which can number up to 60 men, women, and children. They also have a food bank operating in two locations.

ACAC utilizes a small army of volunteers to help make their ministry possible and Karen and I are a small part of ACAC's small army. We were recently blessed to serve on a food prep/food service team organized by our church. There were several other volunteers already in the kitchen working under JR's supervision when our team ( Karen, me, Kerry, and Sandra) arrived around 9:30 AM. JR (Director of Facilities & Kitchen) immediately put me to work opening cans of corn to fill one of the biggest pots I'd ever seen. If you look past me in the photo below you'll see a "small" pot in the stack of things to be washed.

Here I am washing, rinsing, sanitizing all the pans, trays, pots, utensils, cutting boards that the kitchen crew was generating preparing the lunch meal. Yes, I am wearing a hair net!

After the corn I moved to slicing and panning bread which we then spread with a butter/garlic sauce. After the bread was in the oven, I was promoted to dishwasher and spent the next hour or so scrubbing and splashing my way to a happy place. I really do like washing dishes. There are all kinds of spiritual analogies you can make from washing dishes...but maybe that's for another blog. Or maybe my novel...resurrection and restoration from the perspective of a kitchen full of pots and pans. But I digress.

While I was working in the kitchen, the ladies were up front prepping all the salad and desserts and getting the serving line organized.

Promptly at 11:30 I was pulled away from the sink and sent to the serving line. The menu was green salad OR tuna salad, spaghetti with meatballs OR beef tips on rice, corn, garlic bread and a wide range of amazing looking cakes and donuts. All of this, of course, donated.

Desserts

Karen served the salads, I was on spaghetti and beef tips, Kerry worked the rice and corn, and Sandra distributed utensil wraps and dessert. Another volunteer served the drinks while another took over washing dishes, pots, and pans in the kitchen.

Sandra, me, JR, and Karen just before the lunch rush began. 

Thanks for taking the picture, Kerry!

We were released from the line at 12:45 and thanked the ACAC crew for the privilege of service, and praised the Lord for such an important ministry right in our own backyard.

Thanks for helping us help others through your love, support, gifts and prayers. It's an honor to be your Kingdom representatives here in central North Carolina!

Maybe I should have put my hair net on my chin...seems to be more hair there!