Idiosyncrasies

So I am not actually sure if ‘idiosyncrasy’ is the right word, but if it has anything to do with ‘peculiarity’ and ‘quirky’ then it is the perfect word to describe our experience in Brussels every other Friday.  The episodes always begin with a 45 train/metro/hike to an old, should-have-been-abandoned-a-long-time-ago hospital building that has now been converted into a residence for ‘homeless’ people.  The best way to describe the operation there is that it is ‘desperately held together’ by a few incredible selfless 50+ strong Christians who have a very unique vision for serving the poverty stricken. The only qualification for staying there is saying that you are a ‘praying person’, so most of the residents are chemically dependent or mentally handicapped. 
Anyway, every time we go there it is an adventure.  Among so many other things, here are some of my favorite idiosyncrasies:

The woman who runs the kitchen gets so excited to see us every time that she starts jumping up and down and clapping her hands frantically. 

The people who run the place constantly change between three languages so it is only possible to understand parts of their thoughts and the rest is just guessing. 

One of the volunteers has pretty severe memory loss and always asks us who we are and then starts telling us the same story over and over.

One guy only eats his soup in the big white bowl after he has eaten everything else and I always forget this order and have to be 'retaught' by him.

Every time that we have gone there (more then ten times) we either move, wash, skin, or cut pumpkins.  Though it has been unheard of before this, I am now something of an expert in pumpkins :)

This last time we had the privilege of cleaning 9 flights of steps because on of the residents had left the tap water on overnight and it had flooded the stairway. 

Though I could never explain to you all of the little quirks that make the place so peculiarly special, I can say that I am learning that I love idiosyncrasies.  Sometimes, it seems, true service is serving the person in the way that they need it.  There are so many things that I feel like I could do to improve the soup kitchen shelter, but that is not what I am called to do.  Instead, service here means rolling with the punches, laughing about the idiosyncrasies, and mashing pumpkins or cleaning the decade old grease off of the oven hood.  Somehow its worth it, though, when your service is rewarded by a quiet smile of gratitude from one of the residence or the bouncing and clapping pleasure of the woman who runs the kitchen.