"Sorry. We don't have grown-up plates yet."
“Sorry. We don’t have grown-up plates yet.” A frequently used statement in the Ladd house.
We live a fairly grown-up life: Grown-ups come over all the time. We are responsible for two children and two pups. And we are starting a church from the ground up. But if you sit at our table (and I hope you will), you will be served a grown-up meal on a plastic picnic plate. (We’ve also got two sizes of plastic cups and a bunch of plastic bowls.)
Eight years ago, I was a single mom living in a tiny cottage in rural South Africa. My heart pulsed for the Church, and I felt God tell me to live it out. I started bringing home the carload of people I took to church to share a meal and teach basic family skills on Sunday afternoons. We ate rice, beans, cornbread and Kool-Aid together every Sunday. Eventually, I had to buy a bigger car and an enormous amount of picnicware so I could transport and feed the Sunday Lunch family we had formed. Everyone had a role to play at the picnic blanket, and we washed our plastic plates and bowls in buckets after we ate. Mamas learned how to pray and eat as a family, nutrition and childcare basics, and how to play as a family. We had a lot of dance parties to the Black-Eyed Peas. Life never seems that grown-up when you have cake in your hair and there’s a mob of tiny people shouting, “Mama Kacy! Boom Boom Pow!”
In a whirlwind, I went from being dancing Mama Kacy to a church-planting wife. We skipped all the normal steps in the transition – like meeting each other’s families, getting engaged, bridal showers, and wedding gifts. We just merged the contents of our two little African cottages into a bigger one and kept on going.
Living out church looks a lot different in the Southern Suburbs of Cape Town. We have as many social gatherings as possible, usually with people who have very grown-up jobs and very grown-up tableware. (South Africans are known for their incredible hospitality and beautiful table settings. Or at least I know them as having beautiful table settings.) As we sit guests down at our 100-year old dinner table with a bench that came from a fast food restaurant, I always say, “Sorry. We don’t have grown-up plates yet.”
I get embarrassed. I wonder if they ever think it looks like we’ve got our lives together, but once you open our cabinets you see that it’s just scratched plasticware. Or maybe I just think that about myself? I have actually wondered if we can actually call ourselves pastors and leaders if we can only offer dingy picnic plates. That might seem ridiculous, but I bet you’ve thought that about some area in your life too.
For the record - It is on our list to buy glass dishes. I even know where I will buy them. They are going to be beautiful, and I’m going to buy 12 of everything - maybe 15. But it keeps getting bumped to the bottom of the list behind immigration lawyers, Lifa’s body always growing, and the looming reality that my car is a ticking time bomb. (We’re not actually going to have glass dishes until Benjamin moves out of the house. It’s fine.)
We are plastic plate people. Scratched, faded plates at that. But the truth is, our plastic plates probably qualify us - not disqualify us - for this grown-up life of church planting and family building in Cape Town. Those plates have served thousands of meals. They have fed sick children the nutrients they were lacking and served countless pieces of celebration cake. They’ve been the centerpiece for real life and real love. They’ve been washed by the least of these and served feasts to people from all over the world. Those plates have represented a long journey with God – learning how to be a church, a family and how to do real life with people in every type of setting. They’ve traveled in a back pack to serve hot food to shacks riddled with sickness. They’ve served leaders, doctors and business owners in the Southern Suburbs.
It’s so easy to believe that our circumstances or what’s behind the cabinet doors disqualify us. It’s so easy to feel embarrassed when you dish out all you have to offer but it’s not even close to what you wish you had. But maybe… just maybe… those circumstances are the ones that qualify us for our calling. I think my plastic plates may have equipped me. I don’t know that I would be the same wife, mom, church member or leader that I am today if I had not spent year on picnic blankets, covered in baby juices and bleaching plastic plates.
Next time we serve a fancy dinner on plastic plates (with homemade chalkboard placemats nonetheless), I’m not going to apologize for not being a grown up. I’m going to send up a quick thank you prayer to a God who called me into a life of abundance. He remembers every meal those plastic plates have held, and He’s used many of them for His glory. He knows what’s behind our cabinet doors and the areas we perceive to be our weaknesses. Those are the exact things He uses to make our lives count.
I am created to love sharing meals, gathering people at my dinner tables, and to invite them to eternity’s dinner table. He trusted me with plastic plates so I could feed any age, any person, in any place. I am equipped to feed an army, to take it to-go, and to drop things and just carry on. (Not the case with our blender… RIP.)
I don’t know what your plastic plates are, but I bet they have a purpose.