My favorite ministry we did in Bulgaria was cooking for and serving a group of homeless people in the area.
What I loved about this was that we weren’t simply cooking them a meal and giving it to them; we were serving them and sitting with them, eating, fellowshipping, and bonding with them by building a relationship together, just as Christ would do when He walked the earth.
It made me feel like I was a disciple, sitting and eating with Jesus!
I felt honored to be a part of these peoples’ lives, even for just a short time.
While preparing for their arrival for lunch at the church, my job was to set the table.
Not the most exciting task in the world.
But I suddenly found myself taking extra care in the place settings, the chairs, the napkin folding, etc.
At first I thought it was just my love of hospitality kicking in but I soon realized it was more than that.
God put Matthew 25 on my mind and gave me this overwhelming love for the people I had yet to meet. I didn’t even know these people who were going to be dining with us and yet I had this supernatural love for them all of a sudden.
I must have spent 20 extra minutes making sure each chair was perfectly spaced with one another, aligned flawlessly with the table, every fork and knife placed impeccably at the right spot, and the napkins were folded in the fanciest way I knew how, making sure every detail was as seamless as possible, as if Jesus Himself were coming to lunch, because that’s exactly how it felt to me.
Four words kept repeatedly echoing in my mind the entire time: “The King is coming! The King is coming!”
The love I have for Jesus overflowed abundantly onto the people we were expecting for lunch that day. I didn’t speak their language and I didn’t know their stories, but Jesus told me to just simply love them.
When the first group of people arrived, I couldn’t wait to sit down with them! We sat with our host, Pastor Emil, while they spoke in Bulgarian back and forth, getting to know each other. I didn’t understand a word they were saying but I didn’t care; I loved just being there with them.
The meal was served, and after I gave a short lesson on forgiveness while Emil’s son translated for me, a sweet older gentleman exchanged the very few English words he knew with me and I got to know a few things about him.
The next day during our church service, the same gentleman from the day before walked slowly across the room with a small bouquet of flowers outstretched towards me. My eyes were watery as I hugged him and accepted his sweet gift to me. Flowers are my favorite things to receive as gifts and his expression of kindness left me absolutely amazed that even though he has so little, he still chooses to spend the small amount he may have on blessing someone else’s life.
I saw Jesus in that man– humbleness, selflessness, and love poured out from a simple man who is poor on earth but has riches in Heaven.
And just as I was expecting that day, He showed up; the King had come after all.
Matthew 25: 34-40
Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what’s coming to you in this kingdom. It’s been ready for you since the world’s foundation. And here’s why:
I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was homeless and you gave me a room, I was shivering and you gave me clothes, I was sick and you stopped to visit, I was in prison and you came to see me.’
Then the righteous will say, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?’
Then the King will say, ‘Truly I say to you, whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.’
