Showing Up for One Another
“It’s about recognizing that you have a responsibility to others — particularly others who are hurting in some way.”
Over steaming plates of Eritrean lunch in our bustling dining room, this is how Mark Bowman recently described his intention for his Gonzaga University students. He helps them get out of the campus bubble, into the surrounding neighborhoods, and into the lives of everyday people they wouldn’t get to know otherwise. Specifically, as a requirement of his Philosophy of Human Nature / CEL (Community Engaged Learning) course, he exposes each student to 20 hours of experience within one of a few local partner organizations.
For the past several years, Feast World Kitchen has benefitted from having several Zag interns join our work every semester. Without fail, they have been some of our most enthusiastic and effective volunteers in our chef program. They learn, and mispronounce, Arabic or Kiswahili words as they spend time with patient Feast Chefs (and some are able to fluently use world languages they know!). They jump into busy nights serving a section of tables during Inlander Restaurant Week. They tackle little side projects on slow Sunday afternoons. They are here for it – whatever is needed. Most importantly, they become part of the Feast Family, our network of supportive friendships that includes chef partners, staff, job skills program participants, other volunteers, and our beloved regulars.
“More than anything, I emphasize reliably showing up and being present,” Mark says. “It’s an important skill for students to fully commit… and if you schedule yourself with Feast, you get your (backside) down there at the right time, whether you feel like it or not.” He laughs as he says this, but it works: we have definitely noticed that his students get the message. They show up reliably, and they show up ready to work. For Mark, showing up reliably to help others develop is a way of life – he’s in his 50th year as an educator.
Zags showing up at Feast hasn’t been a problem – perhaps (in part) because each volunteer receives a delicious international meal at the end of their shift. But their presence becomes much more than just showing up, and we know the love runs deeper than getting a great meal off campus. We know because students tell us it’s a highlight of their week. We know because many of them keep signing up to volunteer even after their class requirement is finished.
Every shift at Feast has new experiences for a college student, whether it’s serving tables in a packed dining room or having a conversation that shifts one’s perspective on people who come from different backgrounds. We love to welcome students into this diverse space of mutual hospitality, where we work alongside one another to co-create something good for our guests, and where we are part of how our Chef Partners share their original home culture with their new city.
A highlight for our team is when a student shares their end-of-semester reflection on their experiences with us, whether it’s in the form of prose, poetry, or a piece of visual art. One of our Zag friends ornately decorated three wooden spoons with the flags of three different countries and the things she has learned from people who grew up in these cultures, from recipes to tidbits of life stories to quotes about hospitality. These spoons are artifacts of shared experiences, and they are some of the first things our customers see when they walk through the door at Feast.
For Mark, teaching as an adjunct professor at Gonzaga has been a retirement gig after a full career teaching high school. When he isn’t teaching or spending time with his wife, kids, and grandkids, Mark is often volunteering in the organizations where he sends his students. We’re grateful that includes our downtown neighborhood, where Mark serves at Shalom Ministries, Feast World Kitchen, and The Barton English Language School, which is housed across the street within First Presbyterian Church.
Mark has put in lots of shifts at Feast sweeping floors and packing to-go boxes for customers, but his gifts are better used in the literature class he teaches with adults learning English at the Barton School. Some of the students are our Chef Partners and their families, and they tell us the book discussions are good, not only because of their utility helping practice English, but because of the depth of the content.
I [Ross] first met Mark myself when I had him as a teacher in high school, and I loved the classroom environment he created, which somehow magically brought tired, distracted teenagers into a stimulating discussion about the ideas in a classic work of literature. When I learned that Entisar, one of Feast’s Chef Partners from Iraq, was taking a literature course from Mr. Bowman at the Barton School, I was immediately jealous.
One of these days I might pop across the street and sit in on the class – but only if I did the reading beforehand. I remember the feeling of getting busted; you know that Bowman knows when you aren’t caught up and you’re winging it.
We are thankful for Mark and his students joining in the ongoing story of Feast. He does what he tells his students to do: he keeps showing up in places where people are connecting and serving one another, particularly making a point of showing up alongside people who have been through – or are currently experiencing – suffering.
He keeps showing up in my life, too, and I’m certainly thankful for that.
-Ross Carper
As always, when we share about a member of the Feast Family, we ask them to share three fun facts about themselves. Mark’s are as follows:
After many years of lessons as a kid, Mark has enjoyed returning to the piano the last few years.
Riding a road bike is his form of exercise therapy.
He played football at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. In that era, Mac was a historically bad team, once losing over 50 games in a row. However, Mark is proud to share that, during the time he played there, the Scots were victorious in one game!