Memories of a five year old

I ran into Ann Healing at River City Community Church last Sunday. Ann is the Director of Intern and Fellows Program for the International Justice Mission. She and her husband Dave were on staff at Breakthrough before they moved to the east coast two years ago. She told me about a comment her son made that I asked her to put in writing so I could post it.

We just moved back to Chicago after living in the DC area for 2 years. When my 7 year old son finally got over his sadness about the move back, he asked me if I was going to work at Breakthrough again. I told him someone else now has my old job but he continued to beg me to work there. (clearly a little confused about how employment works). When I asked him why he wanted me to work there so badly he said “Mommy, I loved it when we served meals in that big kitchen to the people who live at Breakthrough”. He was 5 years old when we moved from Chicago. Much of what we did the first time we lived here he doesn’t remember. On top of that, he only actually joined us 2 or 3 times in the year that we served meals monthly at Breakthrough. Despite all that, he remembers that there was something special about serving and having a meal with others like we did at Breakthrough. It was unique and forming for him. We hope to begin to serve there again now that we have returned to Chicago.