This is how I usually do Thanksgiving. I got to the restaurant at 5pm and the place was packed beyond capacity. I mean they have a 200 person capacity and there wasn’t one empty spot, even kids sitting on parents laps. The place is owned by Jimmy, a Christian who has done this kind of thing for years. He makes his restaurant completely free on Thanksgiving day from 5-10pm so that people in the community can come and have a delicious meal. What a blessing! I was a busboy at first, busing tables, which means cleaning them off and getting them ready for the next people who would be seated. There were waiters and waitresses who took food orders and delivered the food.
We served about 650 meals at least, probably more. The food was great, we had dozens of kinds of non-alcoholic drinks and great food and pumpkin pie. It was truly exhausting cleaning up and serving so many people in 5 hours. I mean the work just went on and on and never ended, I didn’t think I would make it through the night.
The paid staff there was really hard working and we had volunteers from several great churches in the Toronto area. One of the long time paid staff named Peter has a 2 year old son, he works like this 16 hours a day to provide for his family. He’s a really good guy.
It was so crowded there was hardly any place to walk and we had to move fast to get everything done in time. There were a lot of lonely people there. A lot of people who simply had nobody. Families with children who you could see were poor. Sweet people. One man got up and played guitar for an hour outside on the patio. He was very soft spoken and had a good sound.
There were a few people who were there all alone. I felt extra for them. I know how that is. We took time to chat with the people and give them smiles. There was so much pain in some of their eyes. One elderly lady, probably 75 years old, ate alone. Another younger Asian man, maybe 25 years old ate alone. He stayed for a couple of hours actually. I’m glad he did. There were all kinds of people there.
Later on in the evening I met 2 of the Toronto Argonauts who showed up to sign autographs. I don’t watch sports except for boxing and martial arts, but I was glad to meet Claude Harriott who was born in Jamaica and gave his life to Jesus. He served people their food and helped us out a lot. Signed lots of autographs especially for the children. Him and I sat down at the bar and we talked for a long while about how Jesus is changing the lives of people we know in the carribean.
Around midnight I started my drive home and I was thanking God for such a great evening and opportunity. I live for stuff like this.