Frito Blah! by Jordan (a pilgrim)
Wednesday morning began not with the buzz of an alarm clock and the familiar scent of burning Pop-tarts, but with a grunt and an assembly line. The food pantry at Father’s Heart was receiving an early morning shipment of dried and canned goods, and it was up to our team to sort through roughly 600 lbs of food and pack up bags of goods for those in the community who regularly visited the mission. We formed a line, much like worker ants, and passed boxes of fruit juice, rice, canned yams, and spaghetti up into the community room; here, a team of students sorted perishables into gift bags. We managed to accomplished a day and a half of work – roughly 450 bags of goods – in only 2 hours! What a blessing!
Tony and the ninth grade boys had a task of a different sort that morning – cleaning out an old basement storeroom that had been recently flooded with sewage run-off. The guys spent the morning ankle- deep in tar, smelly water, and old lumber (or was it decayed furniture?), clearing the room out so that Father’s Heart could use it once more. The guys got filthy, and possibly stared a tar fight with each other, but cleaned the room out in record time.
After a subway ride across the city (we only got lost once – stupid Orange line hieroglyphics), we arrived at Coney Island for an afternoon of fun. The team chowed down on some chili dogs at Famous Nathan’s and burned off steam horsing around at the beach. No serious injuries, other than a massive handprint on Jordan’s back and some rashes due to the infamous “let’s put sand down the back of all the guys’ swim trunks” game. The rain clouds held off long enough for our team to ride the Coney Island Cyclone and Ferris wheel together, as well as pay a visit to the headless woman and Bessie, the cow with two noses.
Wednesday’s dinner could not technically be called food, seeing as how the 9th and 10th grade boys were in charge of Stone Soup for the evening. They attempted to create an evening of romance and Frito Chili Pie, but apparently, misunderstood that CINNAMON is not on the list of ingredients. One bowl full of soggy chips, uncooked beans, and
dark grey meat with a curious flavor later, our whole team was dying from laughter. Brent, one of the Wonder Voyage staffers, later referred to the evening as a “noble failure” while eating a turkey sandwich we bought him, to help wash the taste out of his mouth.
The evening ended with a deeply stirring time of sharing and repentance. Eric took the students on a walk to the park and invited them to jot down a burden they no longer wished to carry upon a black card. Upon returning to Father’s Heart, students were invited to cast their burden/card into a pot and publicly share with the other students the hurt or shame they were giving over to Christ; it was as moving as it was painful, with many of our students baring their hearts and exposing their insecurities to one another. After sharing, we took communion together as a group and took part in a foot washing ceremony. What began as a time of pain and tears ended with reconciliation, hugs, and a lesson on how to cook ground beef in the boys’ common room.