Loaves and Fishes

Sunday afternoon.  The kitchen was an inferno with two burners going, and no AC.  I was stirring the rue while Vanessa picked up the bowl of Mama Rolls to wipe the counter beneath it.  As I poured the rue into the veggie mix I hoped that this would be enough to feed eight people.   We would need a miracle. 

That day at church we had a spiritual lesson in Relief Society on being a missionary at a Mormon college.  My mind reflected to my own mission, and how much I missed it.  Goosebumps covered my arms the entire hour of sacrament meeting as talks were given and songs were sung on the Restoration.  There was hardly a dry eye in the congregation after the closing prayer.

As me and my roommates drove home, we saw two boys walking ahead of us.  When I recognized one of them as a friend from the ward, a thought slipped into my mind, “You should invite him over for dinner.”  I was making clam chowder at the request of my roommate, Andrea, and her fiancé.

“You know, I think I’m going to invite him over for dinner,” I said to my roommates.

I did NOT just say that! I thought. I had already contemplated inviting people over for dinner that morning, but no one I thought of felt right, not even this particular friend.  So why have that thought now?

As I walked into my room I couldn’t shake that feeling.  I had had enough experience in the sticks of Chicago to recognize when a thought wasn’t my own.  

I picked up my phone.  “Hey,” I said, I could feel sweat forming between my cheek and phone, “so I had this feeling to call you and invite you . . . and your roommates over for dinner.” 

Roommates?  Where did that come from?  I’m not going to have enough food!

“Yeah!  That would be great!  I’ll ask them.”

He said that at least two of them would come. 

I went out to the kitchen and told one of my roommates, Vanessa, what I had done. 

“Uh…are you going to have enough food for them?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, adding water to the chopped veggies. 

The smell of cooking clams and veggies filled the apartment when my friend called me back.  “Hey Amanda, so my roommates can’t come,”

Well at least we’ll have enough to eat! I thought as my white spoon made swirls in the rue.

“But I’m really glad you called, because there are these boys from the ward that I have been wanting to get to know, and they said that they could come.  I’m not sure you’d know them; they don’t come very often.  There’s two of them, maybe three.”

 My hands felt slick from the steam emanating from the rue.  It seemed to fill the whole apartment.  “Ok,” I said slowly.  Four extra people?  That’s more than he had said originally.  I was trying to do calculations in my head.  There was no way this pot of clam chowder was going to feed nine people!  Five of whom were boys! 

 “I don’t have to eat a lot,” he said, sensing my worry.

“Oh no, I think we’ll be fine,” I tried to reassure him, the swirls in the rue becoming less beautiful.  I hope.

After I hung up I looked at Vanessa who was already cutting up extra veggies. 

 “It’s going to be like the Loaves and Fishes!” she said. 

“If Christ preformed that miracle 2,000 years ago, He can preform one today!” I agreed.  She scraped the last of the veggies into the pot.

Vanessa and I put our faith to the test.

God provided when Christ was presented with seven loaves of bread, and two fishes with the task of feeding 5,000 people.  We had faith that He would help us feed these boys. 

“They’re boys!” Vanessa and I stared at the pot of finished chowder.  I had asked if she thought this would be enough.  “There’s five of them!  My three brothers could easily eat this… times two.” 

“Loaves and Fishes!” I said, tasting the chowder.

Our bowls and cups were mismatched, and the chairs stood at awkward angles as we tried to cram them around the table.

The final count of dinner guests was eight total.

While eating we talked about our missions, snowboarding, and boating.  The two unexpected guests were reserved at first, but quickly warmed up to our enthusiastic company.  One of the boy’s faces lit up when he remembered a miracle from his mission.  His convert had recently been sealed in the temple.  We could tell that this dinner party was a step in the right direction for them.  By small and simples things are great things brought to pass.

Vanessa and I were the last ones to fish out our clam chowder.  It was way more than half way gone.  I bit my lip, and I knew Vanessa was thinking the same thing: Boys like seconds. 

Our portions were small. 

The dinner conversation was full, but what about their stomachs? 

When they left Vanessa and I went over to the pot of clam chowder.  Did they have to scrape the bottom of the pot to get enough to eat?

The kitchen had cooled off a bit as I took hold of the ladle.  “Oh my gosh!” I said, scooping out a full ladle of chowder.  “Look how much is left!  And check out the rolls!”  I picked up the “back-up” pan of rolls.  “We didn’t even have to use these!”  We lifted the towel from the bowl of rolls.  “There’s like a third of the rolls left!” 

“Loaves and Fishes!” Vanessa said. 

“And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full.” Matt 14:20

My friend was so thankful that I had called him and asked him over for dinner, not for him, but for the two boys.

When the Lord tells you to do something, He will always provide a way to accomplish that task, as He did Sunday night when He provided extra Mama Rolls (loaves) and clam chowder (fishes) for those who were hungry physically and spiritually.