The first time I met Hutch he was introduced to me as “the best barbecuer in all of Ireland.”
After a month of being fed by this man, I can’t think of a more appropriate description.
Beginning with the first Sunday we arrived, Hutch took our squad under his wing and made feeding the 55 of us his personal responsibility for the month.
He doesn’t work for the church, nor is he our official host.
He is simply a fatherly man who found out that our food budget was 3 pounds a day and decided he wanted to help. After a few phone calls around the church, he had a large sum of donations to work with.
On any given day Hutch would show up in his van bearing bags of chocolate, ice cream bars, trays of lasagnas, candy and packs of sodas. When there were birthdays, he would arrange for an enormous cake to be made, beautifully frosted with a prophetic verse scripted in icing. He organized extravagant BBQs, Irish meals, chili nights and even restaurant outings for our entire squad. After months of scrawny chicken feet and rice, we feasted like kings.
He said he wanted to treat us to all the things we had gone without for eleven months.
Which he did, even though it cost him countless hours of labor.
And whenever we’d say, “Hutch, you are wonderful!”
He’d quickly reply “I’m really not. God is.”
Even more than his humble serving, what I loved about Hutch was the fatherly love he showed me.
That first Sunday I was assigned to help him and instantly fell in love with his big smile and joyful spirit. After that, I always was sure to find a way to work beside him. He made me his right hand assistant, taught me all his secrets to BBQing, and throughout the month our friendship developed into one in which Hutch treated me like one of his own, spoiling me with kindness.
With his own daughter away in Spain, he said he hoped that someone would do the same for her.
The way that Hutch wracked his brain for new ways to surprise and delight our squad was unlike anything I’d ever seen.
It was creative, extravagant, thoughtfully planned and bursting with selfless glee.
And can only be explained as coming from above.
I’ll never be able to repay Hutch or even properly thank him, but his hospitality is one I’ll never forget.
Whether with by chance visitors or old friends, I want to carry this kind of whimsical generosity into all my relationships, paying forward the extravagant love that has been shown to me.
