May 6, 2007

This weekend we got a glimpse of the place God may have for us here at Mission College. Since October or November we've had the western students over for Friday night supper about once a month. This last month we attempted to have everybody over every Friday night because our remaining time together was so short. Our "audience" is slowly expanding from solely western students. This Friday night we had a more multi-cultural (and multi-colored) group than previous times.

I made a crockpot gluten roast adapted from the Eating First Hand cookbook which we sliced thinly for sandwiches, Soy Curl Sandwich spread, Almost Vegenaise mayonnaise, Oatmeal bread, and we served those sandwich fixings with cream cheese, homemade Pesto, mustard, ketchup, barbeque sauce, lettuce, sliced Roma tomatoes, sliced cucumbers, watermelon, mangosteens, and jackfruit that we harvested from the tree in our front yard. Kelsie and her friend Ruchi had helped me by making Peanut Butter Chocolate Cookies, and we served those for dessert.

Even though the menu was quite a bit more simple than other weeks, the students seemed to enjoy themselves tremendously. And as usual, there were lots of leftovers when the students were done. As they usually do, a couple of our visiting friends acted as human dishwashers so the kitchen didn't stay a mess!

After church on Sabbath, a number of our student-friends approached Monte and asked if they could invite themselves over again for leftovers. We'd thought about inviting them ourselves, but had figured they wouldn't want the same thing again so soon. We were wrong. We had a slightly smaller crowd, but at least one new face. They didn't mind the leftovers at all, and got so comfortable after lunch that we had a number of "sleepers" around the living room. Most of them stayed all afternoon.

I took Colin over to the church for the 5:00 AY program, and when I got back, most of the students I'd left were still there, as well as Nate's friend Tarun and his new friend who is visiting from Argentina, Oscar, -- and Seth, Elizabeth and Marcus had joined the "party" . We simply visited, played Scrabble and Chess, let the kids watch a Vege-Tales DVD, and ate (popcorn and fruit and sandwich leftovers -- again!), and many of our visitors stayed until nearly 10:00pm!

When we had a chance to reflect after everybody left, the idea came up that maybe this is what God wants for us now. I get the impression that many of the students ache to be in a home setting more regularly than they are, and they have learned to feel at home in our house. Maybe our current area of ministry is for the Cheneys' place to be a home away from home for students and interns at Mission College. We can do that!