In 2005, I moved into a condo and my sweet neighbors, Tracy and Roy, started blessing me with amazing meals. I have always loved food but felt so loved through their meals. It wasn’t just eating, it was an experience. To them, food was love. They started teaching me how to cook and took me in like a son. It was amazing.
In 2007, I started cooking for three friends. Every Sunday I would cook a meal, and we would share our lives and pray together.
In 2009, I was struggling to know what to do in life and a random guy at a conference said, “Spend three hours of week doing what you love and see what happens.”
At that point, what I loved doing was cooking and sharing the Bible. So, what did I do? I invited a 32 year old limo driver, a 37 year old hair stylist from Scottsdale, and a 52 year old mom.
I would cook and we would chat.
We all enjoyed the connection this experience brought, so they started inviting people and the next thing you know I had 15-25 people in my condo every Monday.
I was really getting this cooking thing down, and it was such a joy to bless people with food. Over the next two years, I would experience such joy and life through this.
Then, in 2014, I was going through one of the toughest seasons of my life. I lost my community and felt so alone. So, once more, I decided I was going to start cooking for just a few people. Every Sunday night, I would cook for whoever wanted to come hang out. What started out with three people grew to 25+ again!
On April 24th, 2016 I went to bed and had a vision for a house that’s purpose was to build community—a place that could hold a ton of people and where love, joy, food, and connection would flow. 52 days later, I got the keys to my 1st house. Here, I built my dream set-up. With an in-house ice cream machine and a wood-fire pizza oven from Italy, my backyard turned into a little restaurant where I was cooking for 40-50 people every other Saturday!
About mid 2018, I decided to take a break and reflect on the many amazing connections that were formed here—including four couples that each met their spouses here over the years since!
Even now, I still love to have events and bless people through food. Food is such an amazing way to bring connection, build relationships and tell stories about life. No matter how big or small you always can share a meal with someone since everyone has to eat!
Since I love food so much I started an Instagram account to just share my love for food if you want to check it out!