Everyday Emergency – Day 7 (of 7) : Act of Service
As we enter this final day of our 7 Day Emergency Preparedness Challenge, we’re embracing an essential aspect of readiness that extends beyond our own households.
The journey of Preparedness is often centered on family or household, and it is easy to forget that we are not alone.
There are people in need all around just now,
“Opportunities right in our way.
Do not let them pass by, saying ‘sometime I’ll try’,
but GO and DO something today.” (1)
Today you felt a prompting to help someone in need, someone you know is going through a tough time, and it sure would be helpful if they didn’t have to worry about dinner tonight. You’d like to bring them a meal, or even just a special treat to let them know you’re thinking of them, but you have a super busy day with no time to run to the store, Walking away from such a prompting is a missed opportunity; don’t let it go unheeded.
Charitable Preparedness and sometimes ‘kindness’ often revolves around our own families and homes, but today, let’s remember that we are part of a larger community. Someone you know might be facing a challenging time, and something as seemingly small as a batch of homemade muffins can make a world of difference.
Goal: Have a go-to meal on hand for “emergency” acts of service
Your challenge for today is twofold: First, create a meal or treat using your food storage, and your resourcefulness. Second, find someone in need, whether it’s a friend, a neighbour, or someone you barely know in your community, and share your thoughtful creation to brighten their day.
Even in our busiest moments, we can spread kindness and the spirit of preparedness. Share your act of service and the impact it had on YOU in the comments below or in our facebook group. Let’s close this challenge week with a reminder that preparedness is not just about self-reliance, it’s also about the strength of our collective community. 
As we face this scenario together, let’s consider a different perspective. Too often our attention to preparedness leads us to look only at our own situations, focusing on ourselves to the exclusion of those not in our house. We may justify this to ourselves in various ways, sometimes we judge our own needs to be more important than the needs of another, or at least more ‘urgent’. This is never Christ’s way. Sometimes in taking the time to listen and understand, the problems of another puts our own in a more realistic perspective.
Goal: Look outside of yourself and your house, and feel the pain of someone else. Remember you’re still involved in this challenge week, so you’re restricted to your food storage – but that doesn’t mean you can’t reach out and ease someone else’s burden.
Today’s Tasks
- Prepare a meal (or in a pinch – a special treat) for someone else.
- Be thoughtful – even prayerful about this and FIND someone you can do this for. It won’t be hard (trust me), who wouldn’t appreciate a meal, a loaf of homemade bread or a batch of muffins?
- Use only ingredients from your pantry or food storage
- Either personally deliver your meal, or have someone else personally deliver it.
- *hint: this is one of those times that a meal in a jar (MIJ) would come in very handy
- Once you have performed your “act of service” you are DONE with the challenge!
- Compile all your report cards from the week into a master list of things to do, learn and buy.
SHARING TIME: Post a picture of the meal or treat you made in our facebook group or share the story of your act of service in the comments below.
Focus on how you feel about it.
with Alex Boye and Carmen Rasmusen
Today’s Limitations
- As for all the other challenge days, don’t go shopping to accomplish this task. You are working with what you have on hand only, in a way to demonstrate to yourself that you can reach out when its not convenient because “charity never faileth“.
Advanced Tasks because you’re a super hero:
- Compile a list of at least two or three meals (or home baking or treats) that you can always fall back on because you always have the necessary ingredients on hand. Keep it (and the recipes if necessary) in a handy place to refer to frequently – Your GO-TO meals. Ensure you keep those ingredients in stock – add them to your report card if necessary.
- Meals in a Jar are a life saver and will last in your pantry for months in an airtight jar, or years if you seal them properly. Come up with several MIJ recipes and make up two of each to use when you’re in a hurry and could use a quick nutritious meal.
* I have a minimum of 6 meals on hand at all times. When I’m on top of my game I try to have a dozen. Totally converted here.
Things to consider:
Charitable service is rarely if ever convenient, so don’t let a busy day or limited resources interfere. You might just have to be more creative to work within your restrictions. PLAN ahead to make future service less inconvenient.
One of my favourite quotes of all time is this one by Neal A. Maxwell “Empathy during agony is a portion of divinity.” (2) To me, it simply means that sometimes – even when you’re hurting, or when things are tough, looking outside yourself can change perspective. It invites a spirit into your life, and separates you from your trial if only for a short time. There’s something about thinking about someone else, something about feeling for them, grieving for them, or even rejoicing with them – that puts our day-to-day challenges into perspective. It brings us closer to our Saviour – He who thought of the agony of his mother while hanging from the cross. If we can have empathy, during our own suffering, then we experience a little more of what it means to be Christlike.
“Those who serve even in adversity will maintain a living hope of a better future.”
– Carlos H. Amado (3)
TOMORROW is a New Day – a day to start filling in the gaps that this prior week exposed.
Go through your report cards and make a master list of the notes you took – especially those things you said you were going to DO or buy. If you’ve been keeping notes in your report cards, the data you collected will be very useful as you move forward.
Another favourite quote of mine is from Maya Angelou “Do the Best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, DO Better!” So simple and yet so profound. She gives me permission to stop beating myself up over mistakes I made in the past. I really did the BEST I knew how at the time. But now I know better, so I must DO something different. I must be better, I must DO Better. Otherwise everything I did previously was a waste of time and I learned nothing.
7 Day Challenge REPORT CARD
Goal: Learn to see past yourself, into the experiences of another. Respond to what you see with the service of a meal. If a meal doesn’t suit them, not to worry, find another way .
AFTER you have completed your act of service, Celebrate a week well done! If your family’s been on this journey with you, sit down together to reflect on your experiences, and review what you’ve learned about yourselves. If you’ve been doing this on your own – take the time to reflect and review anyway. This is a very important step. Don’t dismiss it. This whole week has been about learning, so be open minded and teachable. What did you learn?
Go out and celebrate! Buy yourself a DQ Blizzard! A big one. Enjoy it! You deserve it, and think of all the money you saved this week by not making any purchases. Then think about the money you’re going to reallocate into being more prepared for real life emergencies in the future. That’ll bring you back down to reality.
Daily Notes
Thanks for taking this journey with us.
Its been fun and we’ve each personally learned a LOT.
Review your REPORT CARD to help you tally up your strengths and weaknesses. Use that hard earned information to help you, and in due time – when you’ve made some improvements and filled in some gaps – take the Challenge again, on your own time – or with us. Because we’re definitely gonna do this again! And again and again. As long as it takes to work out all the kinks and fine tune our level of preparedness. We might introduce a few new challenges from time to time, or tweak the ones we’ve done, but for the most part – I know I NEED SOME REPETITION to improve my situation and up my game.
As always, I’d love to hear your comments.
Warmly,
Cindy and friends
footnotes:
1. from the song Have I Done Any Good? by Will L. Thompson lyrics
2. from the talk “the Women of God” April 1978
3. from the talk Service, a Divine Quality April 2008