Treadmill Tip: On That Day Everybody Ate

Our freshman honors program students were reading the book, Terrie told me, and handed me an extra copy so that I could read it, too. The student in her office for advising brightened up and said to me, "I couldn't put it down!"  So I brought home On That Day Everybody Ate and put it on my treadmill book holder to be read during my morning walks.

After reading Zeitoun, a previous recommendation from the avid readers in my part of campus, I had assumed this book would be just as hard-hitting.  Poverty is hard to look at, hunger even harder. You want to turn away and look at something happier, with that childlike sense that "if I don't see it, it's not there." I figured this book would not be an easy one, either. But I found it to be different.

Margaret's story is a gentle one of a quietly growing mission in her heart. After her husband died from an allergic reaction while they were both still in their 30s, she decided to go on a "pilgrimage of reverse mission" to Haiti. It was her attempt to get out of her overwhelming grief and turn outward a bit.  

It was 1999. The trip was organized not as a mission trip, but as a trip to transform the participants. They saw abject poverty, worked in an orphanage, and tended dying women in a hostel run by the Sisters of Charity. Near the end of this difficult and depressing sojourn, Margaret's group conversed with a Catholic priest, Father Gerry, who talked with them about the, history, economy and living conditions of the people of Haiti. As he shared his vision of hope for Haiti sometime in the future, he commented that he had a vision for a food program to meet the needs of the hungry children in his community.

It was a passing wishful comment, but it settled in with Margaret once she was back in the United States and couldn't stop thinking about all she had seen, heard and done. She shared her wish to be of more help with her parents.  Her father, a pastor and president of a church conference, had just received $5000 back from a food pantry that had closed.  He offered to Margaret that they could send that donation to Father Gerry's mission instead. It seemed more than a coincidence.  The food program was underway.

The rest of the book is the simple story of Margaret's experience as she became more involved and bonded to the people of St. Clare's parish, returning to Haiti first with her brother, and then with her son for an entire summer to help with the food program. Margaret organized a nonprofit organization called "What If?" to handle the donations from friends and others who heard of Father Gerry's program. But the book is not about an organization; it's about one woman's journey from grief to service, from devastation to purpose.

I found it to be a quiet book, and yet, as our young college student observed that day in Terrie's office, "I couldn't put it down."  There's something about an honest and simple retelling of falling in love with a mission that grabs the heart.  For readers to whom it has happened, it will resonate with their own experience and bring joy. I would hope that, for those who have not yet experienced that falling-in-love with a community to whom they can give, this will be a compelling invitation.

At the end of Margaret's book, Gabriel, a student who lives in the refectory, tells her that the people of St. Clare's can't give anything back, but that they pray for those who have been so generous as to give to them. The blessings flow both ways.  And that's how it always is, with mission.