Confession time: one of my goals in life is to live in a house with ten girls.
I know what you’re thinking, there’s a great place called Sigma Cottage- just move in there! Well, unfortunately that ship has sailed, and as my friends all graduate and begin applying for real jobs, as they get married and move away, my dream looks less and less possible every day. But this month, out of nowhere, our ministry got switched, and I have found myself living in a big house in the middle of Romania with ten people (three of them are boys, but for our purposes here, we’re going to leave that detail out). Aka I am currently living my dream.
My favorite part about living in this environment is the family style dinners. The first night we were here, we cobbled together a basic meal of overcooked spaghetti noodles and garlic bread strong enough to ward off all the vampires in Transylvania. It took us- all ten of us- till after 9 to get the dinner on the table, and even then our salad was a little cabbage and some carrots, we had one slice of toast each, and really, the noodles were soggy and slimy. But as we sat around the extra-long table, laughing about nothing and bonding over newly created inside jokes, I was able to once again rest in a truth that has become a crucial part of who I am these days:
Man cannot live on bread alone, but it’s an important place to start.
Food has the power to connect people and draw them out, to take matters of deep spiritual profoundness and ground them in the physical world we currently inhabit. As we share a common meal, the invitation to share our stories and weave our lives together becomes impossible to ignore or refuse. This is an invitation to come to the table and eat of the bread of life. The pasta nourishes our bodies, the people nourish our souls.
Over the last few days, I’ve had plenty of kitchen encounters. I’ve shared struggles over coffee. I’ve probed past hurts over sandwiches. I’ve danced to pump up music while chopping vegetables and doing dishes, living life with these people who are supposed to be my family, and somehow between the midnight bowls of cereal and the early morning failed fried eggs are becoming just that.
This month, as we build houses for Romanian orphans, I’m excited to come home at night and build a home here, over meals and dance parties and late night movies.
Feel free to follow the adventures of my family for the month:
Kacie Price. David Nobles. Faith Batzinger. Vincent Farino. Katherine Newcomer. Kristin Kendall. April Alvarado. Elaina Rogers. Roberto Calderon.
