In the aftermath of Hurricane Michael, people donated toiletries, cleaning supplies and food by the truckloads to our church’s hurricane relief center. Charles Raney, owner of Rodizio Grill in Sarasota, raised funds and sent a 53-foot truck full of fresh fruits, veggies, crackers, sodas, water, can foods, granola bars and boxes of bread. Charles’ gesture was huge and required plenty of volunteers. We all worked hard – unpacking boxes onto shelves, sorting canned foods onto tables and organizing toiletries into tubs.
After Charles Raney’s generous donation, I was inspired to post the following on Instagram: “Yesterday, a young man came to our church’s hurricane relief distribution center wearing a shirt that read, “I used to like people but then they ruined it. ” I chuckled. Just a few days ago I would have worn that shirt without a second thought, but people, like Charles Haney, and so many others have rekindled my faith in humanity. ” After all, the young man walking in queue and picking up food is doing so because of the generosity of people. The truckloads of donations were greatly appreciated (and gone within hours ) but also where the small gestures.
My Instagram post caught Kristi McKenna’s, a grant writer for the United Methodist Church, attention and she responded: “Sending you much love and support. I’m typing and networking over here to get you funding.” To her response, I wrote: “… while you’re asking, I will need reimbursement for my baseball caps. They are all ruined from sweat.”
Our conversation was the typical word-exchange on Instagram:
Letters are laced together to form words, words are laced together to express thoughts but without an act to breathe life into them, they are left on the white screen to die. Our exchange was typical exchange on social media until Kristi breathed life into her words and they moved off the white screen and away from Instagram. They traveled with strangers for miles.
It was a hard and full day of work at the church. Sweat dripped and settled in strange places, my skin tightened from sunburn, my bones throbbed beneath my flesh and my body yearned to be standing under running water. Running water is an act of grace. The kids and I were exhausted, sitting in the truck and waiting for hubby to finalize a few loose ends when a truck pulled up. He walked across the street to meet the two young women and instead of getting into their truck and driving off, they walked over to us. When they arrived my husband said, Ashley, one of the young woman, asked for me by name. I smiled with the stranger and stretched my hand out to greet her. She raised her hand to meet mine and in hers were two pink baseball caps.
Kristi McClellan, my Instagram friend sent me two baseball caps via the pasage of strangers to replace the ones I lost to sweat.
At the core, people are kind and incredible! Joy is found in great and small things.
