Kitchen Duty

I have found myself on a number of different occasions serving in the kitchen on our short term mission trips, but a lot of you know this isn’t my favorite place to be. This time it has been in Quito with the Fountain of Life team at Pan De Vida. The team had planned for all of their members to be doing VBS, but didn’t realize they needed to have some people in the kitchen. Mike and I and a few other locals were in the kitchen for most of the time over the last two weeks. The team was able to help when they weren’t doing VBS. When Mike and I arrived in Fiji, we were all given assignments for 4 weeks at a time with different opportunities to serve. For whatever reason, this was the one place that I didn’t want to work, but it seems God really had a plan. I ended up having kitchen duty for the entire 3 months. I did my normal complaining behind closed doors of course, but God knew my heart. Four years later, my heart has been transformed for working in the kitchen and I am so thankful for it. We met a wonderful lady named Roceo (see picture above) and she taught us a few tricks in the kitchen. She was sad to see us go and told us we would be missed very much. I was reminded of my attitude again with a couple of people on this team where they felt the same way I did four years ago about their job and I shared my story about how God can use us even when we don’t like the work we have been assigned. It may not have made much sense to them now, but I know it will in the future. Jesus always has a reason for the discipline needed for the moment. (Hebrews 12:7-11)