Crock Pot Chronicles

I'd met a friend the summer of 2010 while working at Camp War Eagle who taught me that prayer for anything and everything is a good thing. She would always return from time off with a "Guess what God did for me..." story. Her attitude towards the Father rubbed off... and this is one of my own stories. 

Guess what God did for me?

I love to bake and cook. However, I do not always like the effort of said activities - especially after an exhausting day. So when I was preparing to move into my very first apartment my senior year of college one of the things on the top of my prayer list was a crock pot.

(The crock pot - the best invention EVER for busy people who love delicious home cooked meals at the end of the day)

I was praying that I'd find a super cheap one at a garage sale, or maybe Salvation Army, or maybe a friend would have an extra one they would so graciously give to me as an "apartment warming" gift. 
One night a couple weeks after moving in a friend called asking for the gate password to the storage place we'd both used for the summer. This very nice friend had a truck and I still needed to move our kitchen table and chairs to the apartment so I took the prime opportunity to ask if I could meet him over there and if he could help me with the table. He agreed. So off I went to meet him at the storage place. In order to fit my table and chairs into his truck though, we had put a couple of his boxes in the truck of my car.
We returned to the apartment, unloaded the table and chairs, chatted a little bit and then he got ready to leave. As he was climbing into his truck I remembered that I still had some of his boxes in my car. So we pulled them out. As he was placing them into the bed of his truck he said,
"I don't know what I'm going to do with all of this stuff. It's my kitchen stuff." 

(He was still living in the dorms for another year)

So I stopped him. "What do you have Jake? I've got a kitchen and it's in need of some stuff."
So we stepped back inside and preceded to go through the two boxes. He offered me a couple plates, some muffin tins... and then guess what God did for me!

Out came a
CROCK POT!

I start jumping up and down in my kitchen. I was so excited that God has answered my prayer. Sure it was just a loan, sure I would have to return it at the end of the year. But for 9 solid months I was the proud caretaker of a crock pot. I promised I'd make good use of this generous lending and make something at least once a week in the crock pot. It was great!
I shared meals with my roommate, friends, study parties, new recipes, old favorites, O-group reunion parties. I loved it and was bummed when I had to give it back at the end of the year.

(Jake, if you are reading this, I hope you have been putting that crock pot to good use!)

When I moved up to Chicago and started working everyday I realized that I missed my weekly Crock Pot meals. I also realized that a large portion of the staff tend to eat lunch in the office to save money. So BRILLIANT idea - if we picked a crock pot recipe and everybody brought one or two ingredients then we toss it in the pot before work starts and we have a DELICIOUS lunch to share. I thought Wednesday would be the perfect day since it would be a midweek pick me up. However, there was one little hitch... NO CROCK POT.
So it was back to praying, but God was taking a little longer to answer. I was beginning to feel like I was just going to have to bite the bullet and purchase one when Christmas came around the corner... and times got busy. I put the thought on the back burner and promptly forgot about the desire for a crock pot. That is until the LeaderTreks annual Christmas Party. My friend Abby had pulled my name for Secret Santa and the last part of my gift she presented to me... 

A NEW CROCK POT!

Thus CROCK POT WEDNESDAY was born.
I actually look forward to Wednesdays now and this beautiful new tradition that God helped me start by giving my own crock pot.

In future look for more Crock Pot Chronicles as the year moves forward.
I'll share some of the delicious recipes we try here in the LT office.