Work Life - Day at Gleanings

Gleanings for the Hungry is an amazing place. Its a YWAM (Youth With A Mission) base that is in Sultana, CA (just outside Dinuba). Their mission is to bring food to the hungry around the world in the name of Jesus Christ. The many ways they serve our world is too numerous for just one blog post, but it is an honor to be apart of their work. This last Monday was the 2nd day I have spent on their property serving and I loved it again.

This first photo is our group praying over a truck that was distributing food. We prayed over 3 trucks this particular day and saw over 2.5 million servings leave the premises. What an amazing impact! I was enamored by the variety of Christian organizations that help distribute food. I was particularly blessed by a man named Joe. Joe lives in Missouri and is retired. He spends his retirement volunteering for Convoy of Hope as a truck driver taking food all over the country. Convoy of Hope is an organization that stays on top of disaster relief aid. They are one of the first on the scene after a natural disaster. They are a huge asset to our country and world and are almost fully run by volunteers! That is amazing.
The majority of our group spent the day working in the soup plant. We took a few meal/snack breaks and too breaks to pray over trucks, but the bulk of our day was spent in this position, pouring soup mix into bags that were packed into barrels to be ready for distribution. Here we have to boys hard at work.


Here are 2 other girls pouring the mix.

Here is the instrument we used to help funnel the soup into the bag. Believe me with your head down you are covered in soup seasoning in a matter of minutes. I thought my dusty soup appearance was attractive, but I don't expect the look to make its ways to the runways anytime soon.

After we filled the bags, different members of our group had to push all the air out of the bags for better fit, and to ensure air tight packs.

Some members of the group rotated between these two jobs.



While the majority of the group worked on soup, these two men readied drying racks for the summer. While this time of year we make soup, the summer months are spent drying fruit to be sent out with the soup mix.

Here is our group of workers for the day. We managed to pack 222,000 servings of soup mix in that day!

After lunch I left my phone on the table while going to the bathroom. I returned to find I had been photo bombed to the tune of 240 times. Here are just 3 sampling photos of what I returned to.



It was a great day! A blessing for us to share in this Christ-centered ministry. We also ended our night after dinner by hearing about a trip to Haiti that some of the staff took. It was a wonderful story of missionaries going just to spend a little time only to stay longer after God calling them to build an orphanage for a woman housing 20something kids! God is doing great things and it is inspiring to hear all about what he is doing through the powerhouse of Gleanings for the Hungry in the Central Valley!