Eat

Cooking is somewhat of a passion of mine.  I tend to have favourites I often order at restaurants so what I often do is decided to learn how to make those foods at home via the internet.  Once I learn how to do it, I add my own twist or combine multiple recipes together often making my own unique creation.

A huge part of building community at IVCF @ SFU revolves around eating a meal together.  So when we came up with the idea of doing a Taco Fiesta Night for our Welcome Event.  There were no complaints.

However, as I started looking at the sheer amount of food to cook, the cleaning of my home, and all the other logistics, things became more and more daunting.  I started dreading the day of the Taco Fiesta Night and the memories of many failed Welcome Fall Events came back.  I began to even doubt if it was worth it and if anyone would come.  As these doubts were racing through my head, I decided to share some of my needs to the Executive team.  To my surprise, everyone volunteered to help out with the logistics.  Julianna became my assistant chef, Catherine made a delicious guacamole and did incredible presentation of all the food, Abraham came to help clean up the home and set up the sign, and Barron planned the small group structure and presentation of the night.  In an instant, all of my fears and concerns were addressed and I sat there blessed and deeply encouraged by the commitment of our Executive Team.

When the day of the event came, Julianna was doing all the cutting of the vegetables and the general prep of all the food while I proceeded with cooking the lime chicken, vegan bean mixture, and browning the ground beef.  Later, Abraham and Catherine came over to do their respective jobs.  All during this time, I kept looking at the clock and saw the minute hand click closer and closer to the 6:30 mark.  As it got closer, I kept peering out the window hoping to see more people come.  However, I could not see any and the fears of the previous failed Welcome Events came flooding back.  The last 5 minutes seemed to last and hour, until I saw out of the corner of my eye people walking past my window.  I looked up and saw more and more people.  They just kept coming!  Some of the faces I saw were familiar while the vast majority of them were brand new.  It became VERY clear to me that this wasn't going to be like any other Fall Welcome Event.  Within 30 minutes, we had 40 people crammed into my little basement suite.  Thank goodness for a beautiful day so we could eat outside.

Surrey Small Group:  SUSHI!!!

We are well into the Fall Semester now and with 7 small groups happening over a course of 4 days, every single one of them either happens during lunch break of in the evening for dinner.  Food is an extremely important thing when it comes to building community and for some reason, our students really get that. Please continue to pray that as we converge around the dinner table that we can grow deeper in our faith and invite others into deeper relationships.