Her name is Ann. She’s a volunteer at Our Savior Lutheran Church in Rehoboth Beach. For the past nine years, Our Savior has provided dinners, three days a week, to the international students in the area. The students come from all over the world and find work in the Rehoboth area during the summer. The concern has been that people have taken advantage of these students in a variety of ways including the cost of housing, transportation, and other services. Providing meals has been a significant way of assisting these young people and creating a sense of community and hospitality. Close to 100 students come to the meal, usually by bike, and the volunteers make sure the students are welcomed and well fed. The past several years, the program has been expanded to include the homeless in the area. The addition of the homeless has created an unusual mix around the tables, but the sense of community and hospitality has not changed and speaks of the power of the gospel. As Jesus says in Matthew, “I was hungry and you gave me food.”
All of this brings me back to Ann. As I said, she has been volunteering for the past nine years. She is known in the kitchen as the onion lady and she takes great pride in that title. What’s remarkable about Ann is that she is 98 years old. She thinks nothing of it. She is a little embarrassed by the attention she receives. For her, serving is a part of her discipleship and discipleship knows no age limit. Her witness of living out the gospel is wonderful. There she is working beside our teens making a difference in the lives of others for the sake of Christ. What does age have to do with service? Ann is an example to all of us in our discipleship and I pray that we’re like Ann and that Ann keeps peeling onions and serving her Lord.
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