Bag lady

One of the parts of student development that I love the most is creating a sense of community among students. That's why I am so excited about their arrival because I will have the opportunity to do life with them and build into their lives. One of the ways we're going to foster community building is through cooking. Our students will be cooking for one another in groups three nights a week. For the first week, though, I am going to do most of the cooking until they get settled. And I am very excited!

There are 19 of us in the villa, or there will be when the students arrive tomorrow. That's a lot of food. I had visions of grocery store trips daily where I was burdened with giant bags of groceries. I had no idea how I was going to supply food for that many people without constantly grocery shopping...something I really do not like to do.

Well, God bless the nuns because they provided us with the names and contact information of the vendors who regularly deliver food to them. Yesterday, I bought a ton of cheese, yogurt, salami, proscuitto, and butter off the back of a truck. Today, I bought milk and eggs. Tomorrow, the bread will be delivered. And next week we will meet the fruit man. Praise God! These vendors are such an answer to prayer!

There are, however, some items that cannot be delivered and for those items I must go to the grocery store. Considering that we are starting from ground zero, we needed to purchase many basic items. Thankfully, Lynda made the journey to the store with me. I could not have done it without her. I did remark, though, on our way back from the store that the sight of us walking back to the villa must have been something...bag ladies indeed. Here's a pic for you to laugh at...as I am sure the people who passed me did.