McDonald’s at Midnight

The girls are ALWAYS hungry!  It’s amazing how small they are and how much food they put down.  They can almost eat more than me, but naturally that could never happen.

However, something funny happened this past weekend when we were in SC.  We were on our way up to The Refuge church in Concord, NC when we stopped at a hotel to spend the night.  We got there, checked in and assigned leaders.  We have to make sure everyone is in their assigned rooms.  We split the girls up in carefully laid out groups so we can limit how many “clicks” are made.  We’ve found it works best to limit the girls from getting too comfortable with each other because it usually causes too much drama when the girls naturally start…well, just being girls.

Well, on this particular occasion, Natalie (who’s pretty much the official ring leader) decided to have an important all-girls meeting in her hotel room.  These meetings are usually off limits to Americans and especially boys.  We have no clue what’s said or what goes on behind the door.  And, if we were in the room, we probably wouldn’t understand anyway.  Before we all got settled in, I was hearing some of the girls say that they were hungry.  They eat all the time, so I have no idea if they’re really hungry or if they just love making Andrew and I go fetch them stuff.  So, I mentioned to Irina that if any of the girls want food, to let me know.  She agrees and heads to the all “important meeting”.

Meanwhile, Andrew and I are in our room settling down for the night.  We get unpacked, finally lay down (in our separate beds!) and chill from all the driving, gas stops, “I’ve gotta pee!”, “how much longer?”, “change the music!”, or just trying to find a parking space for a massive RV in a packed hotel parking lot - moments.  We usually prop open our laptops, turn on the tv, and discuss cars and the next day’s events.  At this point we’ve forgotten about the girls and figured they were off to sleep.  You can always tell when the girls are up because they’re running from room to room visiting each other.  We heard nothing.  At this point, Andrew and I are just about to call it quits, when there’s a knock on our room door.  I hear Natalie’s voice and a long pause.  Natalie is standing at the door with a list of items that we need to get from McDonald’s, specifically.  I don’t hear a response from Andrew at this point.  He finally walks back to me, wide eyed and says, “uhhh, the girls are hungry.”  And he holds up a sheet of paper in his hands.  My first thought is like, “Do what?!”  Then, that’s when Natalie reminded me what I told Irina.  I was like…”but, that was like a couple of hours ago!”  Needless to say, Andrew and I didn’t bother arguing.  We just did what we were told.

Natalie, Andrew and I pile into the van and head on our way to the nearest McDonald’s we could find.  Thankfully, Andrew already knew the way.  We still have the trailor hooked up and at this point we’re determined to go through the drive thru no matter what it takes.  It’s so late that the parking lot sweeper guy is on his lunch break and in front of us in the line.  See pics…

The truck in front of us is one of those parking lot sweepers:

I told you we would do whatever it took to get through the drive thru:

Finally, we get back to the hotel.  Some of the hungry girls are already asleep.  Thankfully, I get all the left-overs! ~:-D

I’m so thankful I’m a part of something so real and so life changing!  These girls come to tell their stories of how God changed their lives in ways they could have never imagined…yet, they have NO CLUE how much God’s using them to change me!  I’ll never be the same.

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