CIA/Thankful Thursday

Last Saturday, I had the opportunity to serve with a project as part of a day that my church calls CIA (Compassion in Action).  2,200 volunteers met at the central campus and then, after an amazing time of worship and "pumping up", we were sent out to serve in one of 90 different projects in our community.  As I waited in line to pull out of the parking lot, I looked around at the hundreds of cars surrounding me.  It felt like the troops were being deployed.  It was the troops being deployed.  I got goosebumps thinking about the lives that would be affected that day and, hopefully, the message of Christ that would get out.

As I mentioned in last week's TT post, my ladies' bible study small group was helping a local ministry put on a fall festival and clothing giveaway for families in transitional housing.  "Transitional housing" in this case means a step away from homelessness.  There are no homeless shelters in our county, so it's actually an extended-stay hotel where families at financial rock bottom pay day-to-day, week-to-week, or month-to-month to live in a tiny hotel room.  The conditions are dismal at best.  

We met up with a few other volunteers off-sight and prayed over our day before driving to our location.  When we arrived, we set up the games, clothing tables, bouncy house, and food tables in an open field on the property.  As we made trips to and from our cars to unload, I kept seeing curtains move as residents peeked out to see what was going on.  The ministry we were working with has been serving there for almost a year and hosts weekly dinners and Bible studies, so they had put the word out about the festival.  Still, I imagine many people were skeptical about what we were up to.

Around 11am, people slowly started coming out.  Between the smell of the grill and the sight of the giant colorful bouncy house, we were drawing them in.  Most started out at the clothing tables, where "personal shoppers" helped them dig through mounds of clothes to find things that fit.  The kids that came jumped right into the games, running from the face painting table to the lollipop tree to pin-the-nose-on-the-pumpkin.  We also had a little photo backdrop set up with bales of hay, a scarecrow, pumpkins, and mums for a family picture.  There was a photo printer set-up so they got to have their picture to take with them.  Lunch was waiting when they wanted it, along with colorful homemade cupcakes for dessert.  We spent nearly three hours hanging out, talking with, and loving on the residents that showed up before it was time to pack it in.  I was exhausted, but I walked away feeling incredibly full, blessed, and grateful.  Grateful not only for the opportunity to get outside of myself and be the hands and feet of Christ for a day, but also for the home and material things my family and I own that I constantly take for granted. 

Instead of a typical TT post, I wanted to share five moments from that day that will stay with me:

1.  Helping a young mom rifle through infant clothes to find winter things that would fit her 9 month old baby boy.  My mind flashed to the closet in our baby boy's nursery that already has outfits on hangers inside.

2.  As we were packing up, my friend that had been taking the pictures was asking me what we needed to do with the crumbling bales of hay.  A sweet woman who lived there overheard us and asked, "If y'all are going to throw the mums away, may I have one?"  I told her I would love for her to have one of the flowers.  She argued and I insisted.  As she gratefully accepted the flower, she said something so simple in passing:  "I love...well, when I had my home I loved...putting out mums in the fall."  It struck a chord with me big time.

3.  There was a little five year old girl that patiently waited for her family to take a group shot together.  She kept telling a nearby volunteer that she was going to keep waiting until they came over because she'd never had a family picture taken.  

4.  Getting to serve alongside the ladies in my group.  It bonds you in a way nothing else can.  I was so proud as I watched them dive in, work hard, and show the love of Christ to strangers.

5.  Surprising the leader of the ministry with boxes and boxes of food for her food pantry before we left.  Her team assembles "weekend bags" of food for children in a local elementary school who have been deemed to be in the worst case latch-key situations.  Most get a hot meal for lunch five days a week but are on their own, often unsupervised, during the weekends and need easy-to-open/easy prep foods.  Knowing our touch was going to extend beyond that day and that particular crowd was awesome.

Please join me in praying for these families, especially the children.  Please also pray that David and I make time to get involved like this more often, be it there or elsewhere.  It's easy to give one day here and there, but to make service a regular part of your schedule takes intentional planning and commitment.  Despite the effort, it's the only consistent antidote I've found to selfish-centeredness and greed and is certainly a calling of Christ that we need to heed.  As I quoted last week, "Sometimes the only way people know they matter to God is if they matter to you."  I know I personally need to work on making people feel mattered around this county.  Meeting their physical needs is a doorway to meeting their spiritual ones for sure and of course that's the real reason we should be doing it.