The Volunteer Hours We Never See Coming
Yesterday began with a conversation about volunteer hours.
I attended a luncheon with the Fellowship of Barnabas Partners, where much of our discussion centered on college interns—the opportunities internships can provide for both students and nonprofit organizations, along with the challenges that can come with them.
Students need real-world experience. Nonprofits often need extra hands, fresh ideas, and the perspective of a younger generation.
We talked specifically about students preparing for careers of service—future nurses, doctors, EMTs, and others who spend many hours learning, training, and serving before they ever receive a paycheck.
At the time, it was simply an interesting conversation.
I had no idea how personal that conversation would become before the day was over.
When the luncheon ended, I was sent home with seven or eight boxed lunches.
“Do you know anyone who could use these?”
Absolutely.
I loaded them into my car and headed toward Conroe. I was already running behind and trying to make it to our Gateway Elder Care bingo game at Landmark.
Somewhere along the way, I realized I had forgotten something rather important: gas.
I pulled into a gas station on the west side of town, and there stood a man beside the road holding a sign saying he was hungry.
Of course, there was a reason I had boxed lunches sitting in my car.
I handed him one, filled my tank, and continued toward Conroe.
By the time I arrived at Landmark, our volunteers were beginning to wrap up the afternoon. While visiting with the residents, I sat near my friend Dottie, who had taught me how to knit during one of our previous visits.
Sitting beside her was a woman I had never met before.
Her name was Deana.
Deana was in a wheelchair and using oxygen, and as we talked, I learned that she needed cat food.
Our volunteers often ask residents whether there is something specific they need. Sometimes those needs are big. Sometimes they are incredibly ordinary.
This time, it was cat food.
I remember thinking, “We can find you some cat food. No problem. We’ll be back in two weeks.”
UnderOver Mission was just around the corner, so before heading home, I decided to stop.
I walked in and was immediately greeted by familiar smiles. These are people I love. One friend, Kate, I hadn’t seen in more than ten months, and I almost didn’t recognize her.
“I’m just here looking for cat food,” I told everyone.
Stephen pointed me inside, and John walked with me toward the pantry. We searched through the shelves, but there wasn’t any.
As I was leaving, Patti confirmed it.
“We’re completely out. We just fed the last of it to the stray cats.”
So there would be no cat food that day.
I headed outside.
And then, in an instant, the day changed.
I fell on the sidewalk.
My glasses flew off. My arm hurt terribly, and I was lying facedown on the concrete.
Immediately, people from the Mission came to help.
John was there. Patti came outside, and Bruno and others scrambled to assist. No one wanted to move me because of the pain in my arm, so they called 911.
They brought me a pillow.
They prayed over me.
Someone held an umbrella over me to keep the sun off my face. Then, when it began to rain, everyone scrambled to find an even larger one.
These people—the people I had stopped by to see because I wanted to help someone else—were suddenly taking care of me.
I kept trying to whisper, “Call my husband,” but it was difficult for them to understand me.
Patti went to my car to find my phone.
That’s when she saw the other lunches.
All those boxed lunches I had been carrying around since the luncheon were still sitting in the car.
She brought them out, and as the paramedics prepared to take me away, I told her, “Just give them to whoever needs them.”
Later that evening, Patti told me she had given the lunches to our street friends who were hungry.
The lunches had started at a nonprofit luncheon.
One had already gone to a hungry man on the side of the road.
And now the rest were feeding people on the streets of Conroe.
Even while I was being loaded into an ambulance, the original mission of those lunches was still being completed.
Then came another full-circle moment.
As the paramedics began asking their routine questions, I noticed a young man standing to my right.
Something made me ask him, “Are you new here?”
He said yes.
“Are you volunteering? Are you getting your hours?”
He told me his name was Andrew.
And yes—he was an intern.
I almost had to laugh.
Just hours earlier, I had been sitting at a luncheon talking about students exactly like Andrew.
Students giving unpaid hours.
Students learning.
Students sometimes getting tired or frustrated while doing work that doesn’t come with a paycheck.
And now one of those students was standing beside me when I needed help.
I told Andrew not to quit.
Keep putting in the hours.
Don’t let the fact that they’re unpaid make you believe they don’t matter.
Keep learning.
Keep serving.
Keep sowing.
When I got to the hospital, Kate met me there. Over the past year, she had spent more time than she ever wanted to at St. Luke’s while battling serious health issues of her own. Now she sat with me, encouraged me, and kept me company while we waited for Joey to arrive.
Then my sweet husband walked in and immediately lightened the mood in the room.
Before long, the doctor came in with good news: nothing was broken. There was a lot of swelling, but I should be fine in about a week.
Joey drove me home, bought me a treat, reassured the family that I was okay, and helped me settle in for the night.
I went to bed grateful.
We rarely get to see where every seed lands.
A conversation over lunch. A boxed meal handed to a stranger. A promise to bring someone cat food. An intern putting in hours no one may ever notice. A pillow, a prayer, an umbrella held over someone on the sidewalk.
None of it seems extraordinary on its own.
But perhaps that is how God so often works—through ordinary acts of obedience, scattered like seed in places we may never see grow.
Yesterday reminded me that we don’t have to know what God will do with the seed.
Our job is simply to keep sowing.
Hosea 10:12