Devotion 2.50/102: Luke 9:13a: Canteen

Presented to River Street Cafe, 26 May 2017

Read Luke 9:10-20

As many of you know, this week I returned from Ottawa where I was serving with The Salvation Army’s flood relief efforts. It was a great experience to be able to help people out in their time of need. There were many stories we heard and experienced in Ottawa. Today, I want to share a story from another deployment: the 2008 Galveston Hurricane Ike relief effort.

We had around 30 food trucks from which we helped serve 75 000 hot meals every day; many people told me that without The Salvation Army they wouldn’t have eaten at all.

I heard more than one account of a contemporary miracle paralleling that of the fish and the loaves. Our canteens were instructed to make sure that they gave away all of their food before they came in for the night. One canteen had some food left. It was getting late so they were seeking someone to give their last Cambro (container) of food to. They prayed. One person then saw a line of about 12-18 tired and hungry looking construction workers so they headed over to offer them their food. They were really appreciative.

As they were feeding these men, a number of school buses filled with people pulled up. It is my understanding that they served over 800 meals at that location – no one went away hungry. Feeling blessed by what the Lord had done they started to clean up. (Now there was a non-believer, a Red Cross worker on their canteen with them today). Someone picked up the Cambro from which they fed the 800 meals and read from the side of it, ‘serves 90 meals’. The Lord fed more than eight times that number and no one went hungry. The Red Cross worker who was helping them on the truck that day began to cry. He said that he had never believed in God – until now.

In our Scripture today, I don’t think it is an accident that God and Luke put the story of Peter’s confession of faith directly after the feeding of the 5000. Luke leaves us to draw the natural conclusion from this miracle that indeed Jesus is the Christ and that God is a God of miracles. He performed the miracle of the feeding of the 5000 two thousand years ago and he performed the miracle of the feeding of the 800 seven years ago. He is still performing miracles today and in doing so, He is providing us opportunities to know and to lead others to know Jesus just like Peter did, and just like the Red Cross worker did.

So today, as we serve people out of the food bank and the River Street Café here, let us keep our eyes open to the miracles of God and let us be willing to help others come to know Jesus’ love through them.

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