You hear a lot of people talk about the importance of teamwork, and rightfully so. Teamwork is how stuff gets done. Teamwork makes people more efficient. Teamwork teaches people more because we learn more and learn better from each other. Teamwork gives us the confidence and strength that a brick building gets from each brick – take one out and the building will still stand, but it's just not as good. In a society of people that growingly only cares about stuff that has to do with themselves, there are still glimmers of hope for looking out for others. Feed My Starving Children is an organization that packs rice, soy protein, dried veggies and vitamins for kids around the world who wouldn't get anything to eat without it. Nappanee Missionary Church has been hosting a "Mobile Pack" for several years, and last year they packed 2.2 million meals to be shipped overseas. So when Lincoln Elementary School Teachers (and dear friends) Scott Sterk and David Wayne came to me in July and said "we want to do this in Warsaw", I didn't need to be asked twice. When they said they had a goal of one million meals and our Mobile Pack was in three months ... I giggled. "You want to do WHAT?" Oh me of little faith. But I jumped in with both feet, and so did a lot of you. When it looked like we would only pack about 600,000 meals (which would be a great first time Mobile Pack by the way), someone came forward with a donation that got us to within striking distance of the cash we needed to pay for a million meals. Then a combination of people putting the $5s and $10s and $20s from their pockets into buckets at the packing site put us to the cash total we needed. But then we were short volunteers. We needed more people. We were not going to be able to pack fast enough and long enough. But over 200 people showed up on 24 hours notice to pack before the event was even scheduled to start, and then packed over 70,000 meals. Elementary school kids who had come in buses with their classmates to help pack meals for kids their own age so they could eat came back on Saturday, and they brought their parents with them. People who worked a shift on Thursday came out on Friday and Saturday to fill holes in the assembly line. And we made it to a million! It started with a simple question posed in a text message: "Why not Warsaw?" All great ideas start that way, don't they? From that simple spark, the flame grew and spread to others – some of whom had been packing meals at Nappanee for years, others who just wanted to help. Almost 8,000 volunteers, including 3,000 Warsaw school students. Nobody cared who got the credit (except that it go to God). Noboyd cared what job they did. It was teamwork in its most sincere form. When the community celebration ended it was a very strange feeling. We looked around at each other and there was a sense of "oh my goodness, what just happened?" What happened was teamwork, and it was one of the most rewarding things my wife and I have ever been a part of. If you helped in some way, no matter how big or small, you were like a brick in that house. You helped us make it to one million meals. You helped us feed over 2,700 kids one meal a day for an entire year. You did that! WE did that ... as a team. And it was a pleasure to be your teammate.
