I decided a few months ago that I wanted to plan some type of outreach event for the women's ministry at Grace. I wanted it to be connected to a place the church was already involved in so I talked to Erin who runs our Infusion ministry about doing something at for the Muslim refugee families they work with. We decided to gather together a group of people who knew a lot more about the Muslim culture than we did and out of that meeting came the idea to do a traditional Thanksgiving dinner at Grace for refugee families. The idea was that each refugee family would be paired at a table with a Grace host family. The ultimate goal was that the Grace family would build lasting relationships with the family they were hosting. We set a menu, recruited volunteers to cook and serve and host and sent out invitations. It was a massive undertaking. I spent all of my Thanksgiving break working on it. I now know why people prefer to get dinners catered rather than have people bring food. If it wasn't for my wonderful sister and my dear friend Amy (as well as a man named Paul with lots of catering experience) I might have cried.
The event ended up going off perfectly. I could not have asked for a better turn out. We had 80 Musilm refugees and well over 100 Grace volunteers. Our pastor, Buddy has called it one of the top 3 things that Grace has ever done. The event has already been reciprocated. The manager from one of the complex who helped with some of the program called 2 days later and said they wanted to invite us to eat in the mosque. I mean really? What church has the opportunity to share a meal with 80 Muslims in their building and gets invited to their mosque? Crazy.
Below are some pictures of the event.
Serving
Buddy talking with the translator
a lot of pie
ummm...just crazy.
A family with the family they hosted.
0 comments:
Post a Comment