Feeding of the 5000

Okay, time to get my act together and share more Colombia stories.

If any of you know the story in the Bible about when Jesus feeds the 5000 people (scholars say this would have meant 5000 men PLUS women and children above that) with a mere 5 loaves and 2 fishes. In the story the disciples tell Jesus to send the crowds home because they've been there all day and are getting hungry. Jesus tells the disciples to feed the people. The disciples tell Jesus He's nuts, all they have is one small boys' lunch of 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. Jesus asks them to bring the food and He prays over the food. The disciples begin to distribute the food, and the food keeps multiplying until everyone is fed and FULL. Then Jesus tells them to collect the leftovers. They collect 12 baskets full of leftovers. I've always been fascinated by this story. I couldn't stop thinking of it when I was in Colombia, because it the multiplying of the totes reminded me of it so much.

Our church made up some totes for the children in Colombia. They were given a list of suggested items to put in the bag mostly including school supplies, and a toy, brush, comb, and some gloves etc. On the Saturday of the trip we were helping to host a children's activity that Julien and Ilyanna had planned as an outreach for the community. They invited all of the kids in the neighbourhood. Our church sent us with 86 totes (6 1/2 full hockey bags/suitcases)! The first miracle was that we were able to get through customs etc with no problems and that they all actually MADE it to Colombia along with us :)

Anyway, when we got there we found out that they had received replies back from 135 kids that were going to be at the event. We were a little worried about what we would do (knowing we only had 86 totes). We figured there was enough supplies that we could divide the bags and make more (smaller) bags with the 86 original ones. This was no small task:
Here is a picture of Sherry and Alisha sorting supplies for the totes. We decided the easiest thing would be to essentially empty the totes and start from scratch. This took several hours to do (but was lots of fun :) The Colombians that we were staying with were blown away by the amount of stuff that our church had donated. They were saying that a notebook and box of crayons would have been enough. Interestingly enough, we felt some mixed emotions over this whole thing. Proud that our church had been so giving and made up these wonderful totes on one hand, and embarrased on the other hand, but how excessive they seemed once we were there. This was a friction that we couldn't really understand or explain. Even now I'm not sure it makes sense.

Anyhow...on with the story. We managed in the end to multiply 86 totes into 132 totes for children, and 14 or so totes for some seniors that we visited (will share more about that another day). Even after dividing the totes and almost doubling them in number, there were still many supplies for each child. Not only that, but once we were finished filling the totes as equally as we could, we were left with a table of leftovers :) These were going to go back to Bogota to be shared in the churches there for Sunday school supplies etc. :
Above is the table of leftover supplies. We were all blown away by the way we were able to take those bags and multiply the number of totes we could bless those wonderful people with. It was truly a miracle in our eyes!

When we gave out the totes, I had Alisha take pictures of some of the kids since i was in the church handing them out. She took this picture of a little guy. She said he seemed a little nervous to open it and just wasn't sure what to expect:
One of my greatest memories of that day was a little girl that I saw after we were finished handing out the totes. Even though it was nearly 30 degrees in Medellin that day, this little sweetie put her gloves on and was walking around outside the church with them on, and snuggling her new teddy bear from the bag like it was the greatest thing on earth. I didn't get a chance to take her picture that Saturday and I was so disappointed because I really wanted to get a picture of her in her gloves. Then, wouldn't you know it, Sunday morning when we got to the church, there she was, waiting just outside the door. Gloves still on, and teddy bear in hand :) I was so thrilled. I had Kristena ask if I could take her picture. (notice the kids don't smile for pictures?). So here she is:

This is definitely one of my most treasured pictures from the trip. It was so neat to be a part of that blessing. Julien and Ilyanna told us those kids would never have gotten a gift like that before. They just don't have enough money for things like that. My family filled three tote bags to send, I think they were around $20 or less to fill each. A drop in the bucket for us, and a bag of goodies they would never have otherwise been able to enjoy. Our prayer was that the totes would be a picture of how God loves each of those kids. That the parents of these kids (who don't actually attend the church), would see it as God's love being poured out on them.

It was such a blessing to pass those out.

Melanie