Service with a Smile

As you may have already figured out, the weather has definitely not been in our group's favor. When I volunteered to deliver meals to the beneficiaries of Moveable Feast that Friday night, I was not aware of what I was getting myself into. 

The necessary attire for delivering meals in the rain.

It's hard enough navigating through city streets that I am unfamiliar with, and when you add rain into the mix it just makes it worse. Since Josh was driving, it was my job to be the official navigator. I told him right as we were leaving that I am not the best with directions, he laughed nervously as I directed him to turn left up ahead. Shortly after we pulled out onto the road I had to tell him to go back the other way because I had led us in the total opposite direction- and that pretty much set the tone for the rest evening, sorry Josh.

Our job that night was to deliver the individually prepared meals to the people in need. I realized while we were driving that so many people were counting on us to do what we promised to do- all of the individuals in need of food, Terry (the director of Moveable Feast), and the people who had volunteered their time to cook these meals. I am not a stranger to volunteering, but usually when I do I am not given as big as responsibility as I was that evening. Usually I am with a large group and there is an adult telling everyone exactly what to do, however, that was not the case here and I felt under a lot of pressure to make sure we delivered everyone's meals in a timely manner.

We were running behind schedule due to wrong turns and difficulty finding apartment buildings so I was worried the people we gave the food to would be angry at us for being later than normal. I remember being particularly scared when knocking on the door of one apartment because it was late and I had to walk up to the third floor by myself. To my surprise, the man who opened the door greeted me with a smile and a sincere, "Thank you!" when I handed him his food. After noticing my rain jacket he added, "I hope you're staying warm and safe outside in this poor weather we're having." 

He probably doesn't know what an affect his kindness and concern had on me. This guy is sick with a disease that has no real cure and poor enough that he needs food delivered to him everyday and here he was expressing concern for me. 

At that moment, I had a dramatic change in attitude. To be honest, earlier I was not looking forward to spending four hours of my Friday night driving around in the rain. I was just doing it because I knew I needed the hours. When a man that had no reason to showed me kindness, I realized I had no reason to have a poor attitude about helping people. 

I am thankful to Moveable Feast for showing me the importance of not only "service with a smile", but a genuine smile.