Food Pantry - Walking by the Spirit

One Tuesday morning a few weeks ago I was at my usual Tuesday morning place - our church's food pantry. Every Tuesday we have the pantry open -- people can come, socialize, drink coffee, and when the food arrives they can go through the pantry and get free food. Student nurses come once a month and offer blood sugar and pressure tests. And while folks wait they can attend Bible study. A typical Tuesday will have about 60-70 attendees.

This particular morning there was a snow storm, and attendance was at about half of usual. I typically mix and mingle, welcoming people, chatting, maybe praying for special requests. I didn't see any of our regular Bible students, so when I made the announcement inviting everyone to Bible study I wasn't expecting anyone to respond.

I did see Kay who was a regular, but she told me she couldn't be at the study that morning. "I guess we'll call it off this morning," I said. So I turned to walk back to the study room to put away the Bibles I had laid out earlier in the morning.

As I turned, three men who had never before come to Bible study got up from their tables and followed me to the study room. Turned out one of them had never even been at the pantry before! "I just saw a bunch of people coming into the church," he said, "and so I came in to see what was going on." We prayed together, and the four of us had a good discussion of Galatians 6, which is what our group was up to. Walk by the Spirit. We did.