3 Hotdogs

I heard the following story during the sermon last Sunday:

Our church is part of the University of Iowa complex. Every year they give out free food during the first week of class. They fed 700 people during the past week, a different meal each day. On the last day, they served hotdogs. After everything was over, and the church staff and volunteers had finished cleaning up, they noticed a woman sitting alone in the church sanctuary. They decided to leave her alone, figuring she just needed some time to pray or meditate. After some time, she came out of the sanctuary and was just hanging out in the lobby, looking a bit uncertain on what to do next. Our pastor, Fr. Ed, decided to reach out to her and find out her story. This lady was visiting from out of town. Her 9-year-old son was in the hospital with serious health problems. He was having a tracheotomy. She just stumbled on the church and decided to come in, because she wasn’t sure what else to do with herself. Fr. Ed went down to the kitchen to see if there was any food left. There were 3 hotdogs and some chips. He heated them up in the microwave and brought them to the woman. She ate, she talked, they prayed, and she went back to the hospital. Fr. Ed’s lesson about the story was that you never know when and where the Holy Spirit alights. He felt like the last 3 hotdogs might have made a bigger impact than the first 700. I really liked this story.

Sometimes we measure our success in this world by numbers. If you are a business person, you may keep track of how many units were sold or how much profit you made. If you are in a service ministry, you may keep tabs on how many people you served, how much money you gave away, or how many hours you volunteered.

Yet, as this story shows, sometimes God works through us to reach out in small ways to one person. A listening ear, a comforting word, a supportive hand, a few prayerful moments, some leftover food…all can make an immeasurable impact.