"Let me tell you, I saw Jesus at work today."

One the girls in my bible study had the opportunity to lead a missions trip to a small town in Arkansas this summer. While there, she experienced a situation that truly blew my mind. To motivate you to read this, the story ends with a restaurant full of people praying together. This story challenged me, and I hope challenges you, to seek opportunities to be Jesus for somebody - it may just be in a restaurant Kitchen! 

"We arrived in Helena, as a group of 25, on Saturday, July 6^th. This particular Saturday was a very normal day in the sense that all Saturday’s, when arriving in Helena, consist of eating, unpacking, and shopping at the only Walmart in town. Little did we know that the very next day would hold a memory that would never be forgotten. After the church service on Sunday morning, we quickly hopped into the rental cars for lunch because we had 3:00 camp meetings to attend. Typically we all crave Mexican food at the only local Mexican restaurant in town, but on this particular Sunday, we decided to try the new restaurant in town called The Delta Grill. The Delta Grill has been open for a little less than a year now, but has created a good reputation for its food. Ann Carter had heard that The Delta Grill had some pretty great battered fish and onion rings. As we walked into the restaurant, you could see the surprise on the customers faces. All 25 of us coming in to take over; we are any waiter’s nightmare. After all the remaining tables in the restaurant had been pushed together to accommodate all 25 of us, and we were all settled, we began to wait… and wait. It seemed that it took 10 minutes for our waiter just to take our drink order. Then when he did, he didn’t seem very capable of completing the task without some assistance. The drink machine was not self-serve, but luckily the owner didn’t seem to mind that our group was just helping ourselves. Looking back, that may have been slightly rude, but in the end the waiter was just happy to get everyone a drink. As we sat and waited for the waiter to return and take our food order, fifteen or twenty minutes passed by. Eventually Vikki and I decided that we may need to see what was going on, so we went up to the cash register and Vikki asked, “Is there anything that we can do for you?” The owner was glad to have Vikki take the orders of our large party. After he explained that CF stood for crinkle fry and SF stood for seasoned fry, I quickly asked if there was any other way I could help him out. He looked at me and said, “Yes, young lady, do you mind coming back to the kitchen for a few minutes?” I was thrilled. This would be my first experience cooking in a restaurant’s kitchen. Quickly we made our way through the curtains and I was introduced to Alan, who had come just to cook for the day because Dave was short on workers. Dave is the owner of the restaurant. He had also brought some of his family members in to help. One of which was our struggling waiter. At first, I was just waitressing and taking food to tables as it was prepared, but soon that wasn’t enough because Dave had to run to the store! The Delta Grill had run out of cold slaw and batter for the flounder—the two seemingly most popular items! By that time all the kids in our group had to come see what it was like to be in a restaurant’s kitchen. Lillian DuVal and Carol-Ann Moore came and took pictures of us cooking, but soon began taking drink orders for the other customers who were coming in to eat. Lillian and Carol-Ann became the waitresses and I started frying the last pieces of battered fish and put the seasoned fries, crinkled fries, and the onion rings in the fryer. We were all having the greatest of time laughing and shouting orders like, “Where are the plates?” or “Tracey wants his fried okra!” Well Tracey never got his fried okra, but eventually everyone in the restaurant was fed. As I sat at the table eating my fried fish, Dave and Alan came out of the kitchen to thank all of us. And, I will never forget what Dave said, “I’ve never seen anythin’ like this before. I couldn’t believe how all you girls just pitched in and started servin’. This mornin’ I prayed that God would help me with my business. Let me tell you, I saw Jesus at work today. Y’all did exactly what Jesus would’ve done. Thank y’all so much. I just can’t thank ya enough.” As Dave thanked us for probably the fifth time, I saw his eyes water up just a little bit, and at that Matthew Brown suggested that we pray for the restaurant and for Dave and Alan. With that notion, all of the customers in the restaurant circled up and grabbed one another’s hands and we bowed our heads before our wonderful God who showed Himself that day at The Delta Grill. As we drove back to the church to prepare for those 3:00 meetings Cari DuVal said it best, “Y’all that will be a memory that we will never forget, and Alan and Dave will surely never forget it either. We did just what we were supposed to do—bring the Kingdom of Heaven to Helena, Arkansas.”

Jesus tells us in Matthew 5:16, “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

We were able to accomplish that command that day, and what a blessing it was to all of the hearts involved. Praise God for His work done in The Delta Grill on that day."