10/30/2011 Beans! Beans! Good for Your Heart…

…and we’ll just leave that little childhood ditty right there.

BEANS!

Today I helped four others put chocolate, animal cracker type cookies into small plastic snack bags and to fill quart sized bags with beans like in the picture above.

Joann, filling snack bags.

Ladies hard at work filling snack bags for children in Mexico that otherwise will not have any treats.

We filled baggie after baggie. I don’t know where the cookies came from but I’ll assume the same place the beans did.

Chip helping fill the quart sized bags with beans.

I’ve heard that the park managers buy the beans, you can see what size the bags are by looking to the right of Chip in the picture above. I’m going to guess 50 lb. bags and there are two or three of them. Every Monday morning, but this week for some reason, on Sunday afternoon, ladies gather and fill these bags. On Wednesday, Scott and Cynthia will load them into their vehicle and head to Mexico to a mission they support. The children will be given their treats and their parents will be given a quart sized bag of beans. Or maybe they’ll be given two bags or perhaps three if they have a big family. I really don’t know. I do know, however, that the people who receive these gifts have very little. I hope to sit down with Scott or Cynthia before we leave here to find out more about what they do in the mission. Details about the children who wait for their arrival on Wednesday’s because they know they’ll be given a much anticipated treat and they’ll have a fleeting moment of just being any kid as they bite the chocolate head off of the giraffe animal cracker. They’ll savor each sweet morsel.

Mother’s will appreciate the beans that came from across the border that help feed their families. I bet if you talked with a dozen different women you’ll find these beans are prepared a dozen different ways.

To be perfectly honest with you, I wouldn’t have a clue what to do with those beans. The only beans I eat are green beans and Bush’s Baked Beans.

I can tell you this, I’m very thankful for my station in life. It was very humbling to fill those bags and to think that families are in such need that this quart sized bag of beans is going to make a difference in what a family is going to eat this week.

I did ask why these things weren’t given to the poor Mexicans here in this country now and I was told because those that the mission serve have even less than the poor here. Whether it be a family across the border or here in the U. S. of A. I was glad to be a part of this weekly activity. I was glad to help in some small way. Most of all I was glad to be reminded to thank God for what I have, not to ask for anything but to say thank you for all that I already have.