“You cook from your soul; you make people happy!” This is a quote from a woman in a video about a woman who was there in person, Florlisa, at Gleanings’ worship service last Thursday evening. Food is central to Florlisa’s ministry; it’s even more central to the ministry of Gleanings.
Gleanings for the Hungry began in 1982, with founder Wally Wenge's vision of putting to use the millions of tons of California fruit thrown away every year. That first summer they processed 15,000 pounds of donated fruit, and they were able to send sun-dried peaches and nectarines to feed survivors of hurricanes and floods in Guatemala. A ministry of YWAM (Youth with a Mission), for the next six years sent food food to Cambodian refugees in Thailand via YWAM’s medical ships. Since then, they’ve been sending food throughout the world.
I first visited Gleanings nearly twenty years ago when I was a youth pastor at Felton Bible Church, bringing a group of students process peaches on an assembly line one week during a hot Central Valley summer. We sorted out bad fruit, cut the good fruit, and laid it on wooden racks to dry in the sun. It was hard, dirty work. Kids came out of the week saying it was one of the best in their lives.
Several years later, while we were at Healdsburg Community Church, our daughters served for a week during another hot, miserable, Central Valley summer. They also had very good experience.
But Mindy had never been to Gleanings, so we were happy when Chris, a friend from Felton Bible Church days who’s now on staff, invited us to visit for dinner and the weekly evening worship service.
When the worship service was over, people were able to spend a few more minutes bidding on silent auction items, and I had an opportunity to chat with Fritz (the director of Gleanings for the Hungry and Tiffany’s father). I asked him what he thought was special about the place.
He said, "people who came to Gleanings felt the presence of the Lord,” and that there are many places people can go to get “head knowledge,” but when people do practical work at Gleanings with an opportunity to feed others, “they have a unique experience of the Lord.”
In Matthew 25, Jesus tells the parable of dividing sheep and goats. He places great emphasis on whether people were fed in His name. There is no doubt which group the folks at Gleanings would join.
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