Day 661: 5 Minute Freewrite: Monday - Prompt: kitchen

Good kitchens make good neighbors...

At least, that was Mrs. Agnes Hamilton's idea. The Good Neighbors Fellowship had started because she and her husband, Captain Hamilton of the police force of Tinyville, VA, had felt the need with several of their neighbors to open their kitchen and their homes to children in the town and surrounding area who did not get free or reduced lunch in the summer... or who were hungry for any other reason.

Of course, the Hamiltons were, by themselves, a family of 13, 10 of their 11 children home in the summer. That was a lot of mouths to feed, even with the older children all contributing to the family business, even with Captain Hamilton staying in the Army Reserve and pulling a major's Reserve check in addition to his police captain's check.

Nonetheless, Captain and Mrs. Hamilton had felt God's leading upon them to keep their kitchen open … and the money and food to do that always came in, always. They also had become close to the other families who also had felt the same, and still more families whose children made it through the summer without going hungry. The Lord provided for everyone, and in this way, the name of Christ that had been so disgraced by Roadside Baptist Church's tacit participation in the run-up to the Gilligan House Burning began to be held in better esteem once again.

Hence, the Good Neighbors Fellowship, meeting for worship and study on Sundays but at work every day … Mrs. Hamilton rose in the mornings still missing her husband every weekday, for he rose earlier still to get to work, but with great purpose. She had not expected to find work in addition to running Ham It Up, the family's thriving jewelry business, but she relished her eldest children eagerly helping with the cooking, and all her children learning to share with their neighbors of all races and colors in a very real way, both in work and in service.

“A house full of smiling children – Lord, you've given me mine, and a rainbow of others!” she said. “This is not what I expected, moving down here from New York, but I'll take it!”

Captain Hamilton took over the home kitchen on the weekends, cooking or ordering from local restaurants to lighten the burden for everyone. During the week, he kept a circuit with the local farms, buying up surplus food items at discount prices.

“We'll never get rich doing all this, but then again, we already are,” he said to his wife one weekend, as they waved goodbye to the day's last batch of smiling, full children through the kitchen window.