Unseen

There's quite a bit that goes unseen in the preparation of The Gathering's weekly Soup Kitchen and I thought it might be good to look at a little bit of it for a change...

Since we've taken the Soup Kitchen up to a minimum of 100 litres each week our consumption of the basics has rocketed meaning that keeping on top of it all and ensuring we have enough to prepare and serve the soup each Thursday has become a bit of a mission in itself.

A big chunk of Wednesdays are given over to preparing for the Soup Kitchen and a big part of this is chopping several kilograms of onions and then roasting them before also roasting several chickens ready for the soup the next day.

We've also had to reconsider the way in which we purchase certain items, in particular the pasta for each week. When we make 100 litres of soup we use 6kgs of pasta and when we use the two 70lt pots our pasta consumption rises too. Thankfully we have found a local wholesaler who sells 500g bags for R1 less than the shops do, and they deliver it to our house which is a great blessing.

But one of the biggest unseen jobs is collecting and sorting enough 1lt yogurt pots which we fill with soup so that each adult can have a takeaway which hopefully is enough to bless them for a day or two.

We're very blessed by the Deputy Principal of a local school who got some of the parents of her learners to save their yogurt pots. She then collects as many as she can and every month we collect them from her when we drop Eli off at school, it sometimes feels like a clandestine trade in the car park 😉.  We're also blessed by another couple of sources of pots which helps to ensure that we never run out, which in turn means we can continue to generously bless each of our regulars with a takeaway.

Thankfully the yogurt pots are already washed, because it takes quite a bit of work matching the pots up to the right lids. One would think that being 1lt pots any lid would fit any pot, but sadly not, so it takes quite a while to sort each collection of pots to make sure that on Thursdays we're not messing around trying to find the right lid to seal each pot.

So there's a sneaky peek at some of the unseen prep that goes on in readiness for serving our Soup Kitchen regulars on Thursday evenings.