last night was our tuesday to go and serve at the union gospel mission with the youth group. when we walked through the back door and made our way between the cookers and sinks, i saw a face that i recognized from a previous time. last month when we served food, this family was there, helping by serving desserts. it was a father and his two children, a son and daughter. the son, who i soon learned later on, was 11 and i don't know the age of his sister.

as i washed my hands, i learned that the son was serving bread on the hot line. the cook that was in charge for the evening asked who else wanted to be on hot line. no one spoke up, so i volunteered. tay wanted to help on the line too, so i had him place bowls on trays to be filled with beef stew. the kid placed bread on the trays and then it was handed off to the homeless.

we got a good system going and then out of no where, the kid pipes up and asks me:

"what's your favorite food?"

i laughed at first because that's the typical question a kid has. "what's your favorite...." and then fill in your subject. i asked him what his was and he said chinese food. i told him that mine was italian. then he asked me what my favorite tv show is. that question is easy. 24.

"what's your favorite book?"

"my favorite book? hmmmmm....i'm really digging the lotus and the cross. it's an easy read, but what it deals with is sweet. what's yours?"

he then proceeds to tell me that he really likes the ring books. "i'm reading them again, because the first time i read them, i was little and i didn't understand them. but i really like the silmarillion but what is aggravating is that when i get use to a character, they die. i also like eragon, but the book is better than the movie (of course. books always are). if you want to read something powerful, read number the stars. it's about the nazi's and a jewish family that protects another jewish family."

but after that little conversation, he starts quoting napoleon dynamite after tay and i start working each other over with dialogue from the same movie. it was cool to see a kid that i hardly know, engage in discussion of favorites with someone that he hardly knows, only to take it back to quoting movie lines and just being a kid.