Volume 29, No.25                                               
June 27, 2004

A Slice of Life

   George Page turned his journey through adversity into a cakewalk.

   Arriving in Los Angeles during the mid-1920s with just $2.30 in his pocket, the resourceful Nebraska farm boy got a job in a restaurant clearing tables and washing dishes.  He worked double shifts until he’d saved $1,000.

   Using his nest-egg to rent a vacant store, Page set up a company called Mission-Pak and shipped exotic California fruits all over the country.  Ten years later, he had eight packing plants and more than a thousand employees.  Then  World War Two got in the way.

   When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour in 1941, George Page volunteered for active duty, but the government had other plans.  It classified him “an essential industrialist” and set him up at the University of California  to learn how to dehydrate vegetables.  That was important because the military was sending tonnes of vegetables overseas and wanted to save space and costs on each shipload by drying the cargo, then putting back the water after delivery.

   When the atomic bomb brought a sudden end to the war, Page’s contracts were cancelled and he was stuck with thousands of five-gallon cans of dehydrated carrots.  According to author Jeff Cheek, the ever-persistent entrepreneur went back to his old boss at the restaurant where he’d started out.  The two of them tried every carrot concoction they could think of:  baked carrots, stewed carrots, fried carrots, and everything in between.  
Nothing.

   Then, on a what-have-we-got-to-lose whim, they dumped a few cups of shredded, dry carrots into a cake mix.  Voila!  Carrot cake was born!  In no time, other restaurants and bakeries were clamouring for the new confection.  Page sold them the five-gallon cans, complete with a printed recipe.  Within a few months, his surplus of carrots was gone and carrot cake was the decadent new dessert all over North America.

   Unlike George Page, few of us in the church figure out what to do with what we’ve got, in terms of the time, talents and opportunities God lays at our feet.  Sometimes that’s because we’re too busy doing work others have chosen for us;  work we’re unsuited for and ill-equipped to do;  work we consent to, only because of guilt or more subtle means of manipulation.

   Think of how free and productive the people of God will be when church leaders finally learn their role is not to command and control but to prepare and empower!  Rather than fearing diversity, leaders must embrace it, equipping each Christian to pursue a personal ministry founded on the passion, provision and personal style produced in their life by the Holy Spirit.  “Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church... until we come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we’ll be mature and full-grown in the Lord... As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.” (Eph. 4:12,13,16)

   We’re in this together, and no one is exempt.  According to 1 Cor. 12:7, “A spiritual gift is given to each of us as a means of helping the entire church.”   But sometimes that gift starts out like a can of dried carrots.  Just like George Page, we may be handed something to work with that’s not of our own choosing. “It’s the one and only Holy Spirit who distributes the gifts.  He alone decides which gifts each person should have.” (1 Cor. 12:11)

   So if you feel stuck with something, stick with it!  Work with whatever God gives you and keep prying and trying until He shows you how to use it.  Be ready for false starts and true disappointments, but recognize He’ll always help you develop your gift in a way that will ultimately reflect your unique nature. You’ll glorify God, build up his church and reach others with the saving message of Jesus.  And when you find immense satisfaction in that, well, that’s just the icing on the cake.      

By Rick Gamble, published in Cross Current, the weekly newsletter of the Followers of Christ congregation in Brantford, Ontario, Canada.  Reprint at will in not-for-profit publications.  To subscribe, contact sgamble@bfree.on.ca