Statistics flashed across a screen, solemn music accompanied a slideshow of scenes showing desolate landscapes and impoverished communities. On screen, a mother held her starving child and a group of girls in mismatched clothes gathered water from a muddy well. We watched a presentation given to us before the service event and listened to the instructor as he described the conditions in other countries. He showed us photos of the people we would be helping during the mission, communities that were in desperate need of donations, supplies, and most importantly, food. The Lifeline food packing mission was my first service experience, which was the case for most of the students who participated, and it as also one of the first glimpses we had of just how bad the situations are in countries where starvation and malnutrition are so common. Seeing the struggles of starving people in other countries opened my eyes and helped me to better recognize and appreciate our own privileges.
The Lifeline Christian Mission is an organization that provides support and nutrition to people around the world, uniting students and church groups to get involved in mission projects. One of the missions they coordinated was a food packaging event at the Ohio State university .The mission was centered around providing thousands of nutritious meals to hungry and starving people in poverty-stricken countries around the world, including places that have been affected by natural disasters. This was the first year that our church participated. As I made my way through the spacious room along with the rest of the group, I was met with a line of posters and tables displaying photos that showed the impact that other missions similar to this one have had on the communities they’ve visited or sponsored. Pictures of children with jars of peanut butter and bowls of specially-packaged food, doctors providing medical check-ups and necessary vaccinations for kids and babies, and groups of people sharing meals and stories decorated the poster-boards. A group of instructors ushered us into a hall filled with tables that were each lined with different colored tubs and bags of dried ingredients. In the hall, we each donned hairnets and plastic gloves while we waited for instructions. They divided us all into groups and separated us between the tables. There, we formed miniature assembly lines; we assigned each other to a specific job within our group while packaging the meals. The bags worked their way down the line, as a different person measured and poured in dried vegetables, funneled in rice, and sealed the finished package, before being added to a box and waiting to be shipped out. The administrators called out directions over the din of laughing, chattering students. …show more content…
As we worked, they told us how many meals we had packaged and how close we were to our goal amount. We made a competition out of which table could package the mst meals, and who could reach the goal the quickest. Everyone was enthusiastic, and we worked hard and quickly to package the most meals. They called out when each table added another bag to the stack, letting us know who was ahead. We packed so many meals that we constantly had to ask for more boxes to put them in because we kept filling ours up. The competition of the game and working together as a team motivated us to have fun while participating; but the knowledge that the more we packaged, the more people we would help inspire us to work more. Halfway through, the instructors got our attention and informed us about the meals we were making. They told us of past events they had held, and that one box of packaged meals could feed several families for weeks. We realized just how big the impact was that this organization was making on people around the world. Time flew, and before we knew it the event was beginning to wrap up. Hands covered in rice dust, we finished up our tables’ last box and helped stack it with the rest to be weighed and counted. Excited to see how many we had finished, but sad at the same time that it was over, we all gathered around one of the instructors as he wrapped up the event with another quick informational presentation. The goal they had set for
The Lifeline Christian Mission is an organization that provides support and nutrition to people around the world, uniting students and church groups to get involved in mission projects. One of the missions they coordinated was a food packaging event at the Ohio State university .The mission was centered around providing thousands of nutritious meals to hungry and starving people in poverty-stricken countries around the world, including places that have been affected by natural disasters. This was the first year that our church participated. As I made my way through the spacious room along with the rest of the group, I was met with a line of posters and tables displaying photos that showed the impact that other missions similar to this one have had on the communities they’ve visited or sponsored. Pictures of children with jars of peanut butter and bowls of specially-packaged food, doctors providing medical check-ups and necessary vaccinations for kids and babies, and groups of people sharing meals and stories decorated the poster-boards. A group of instructors ushered us into a hall filled with tables that were each lined with different colored tubs and bags of dried ingredients. In the hall, we each donned hairnets and plastic gloves while we waited for instructions. They divided us all into groups and separated us between the tables. There, we formed miniature assembly lines; we assigned each other to a specific job within our group while packaging the meals. The bags worked their way down the line, as a different person measured and poured in dried vegetables, funneled in rice, and sealed the finished package, before being added to a box and waiting to be shipped out. The administrators called out directions over the din of laughing, chattering students. …show more content…
As we worked, they told us how many meals we had packaged and how close we were to our goal amount. We made a competition out of which table could package the mst meals, and who could reach the goal the quickest. Everyone was enthusiastic, and we worked hard and quickly to package the most meals. They called out when each table added another bag to the stack, letting us know who was ahead. We packed so many meals that we constantly had to ask for more boxes to put them in because we kept filling ours up. The competition of the game and working together as a team motivated us to have fun while participating; but the knowledge that the more we packaged, the more people we would help inspire us to work more. Halfway through, the instructors got our attention and informed us about the meals we were making. They told us of past events they had held, and that one box of packaged meals could feed several families for weeks. We realized just how big the impact was that this organization was making on people around the world. Time flew, and before we knew it the event was beginning to wrap up. Hands covered in rice dust, we finished up our tables’ last box and helped stack it with the rest to be weighed and counted. Excited to see how many we had finished, but sad at the same time that it was over, we all gathered around one of the instructors as he wrapped up the event with another quick informational presentation. The goal they had set for