Pastor's Pen
Dear Friends,
May our Lord bless you today and bring you songs of joy, wonder &
imagination. As I write this I am singing happy songs and thanking God
for partners in ministry. We have had the delightful presence of 13
teens and their 2 adult chaperones from Birmingham, Alabama's Shades
Valley Lutheran Church. This mission team has come to HELP US!
All sorts of things are everywhere at our church building. There are
air mattresses in the sanctuary with sleeping bags and suitcases. After
working all day on our building the air conditioning at night keeps
them resting comfortably and cool.
Here's a list of the
gifts God sent us through the hands of this mission team: front, side
and rear entry doors have been sanded and varnished; railings, door
hardware, and light poles have been painted black, windows on the
educational unit have been scraped, primed and painted; our big kitchen
has had a thorough cleaning and was painted from top to bottom - white
walls and lovely blue/green cabinets; the stove and oven have been
scoured & degreased; the exhaust fan has been thoroughly cleaned,
windows that were cracked or broken have been replaced; the plexiglas
coverings on the windows of the educational unit were removed, cleaned,
& replaced and some were actually replaced with new; all of our
beds outdoors have been weeded and the Peace Garden mulched and the
Peace Pole refinished and varnished. All these little things make a BIG
difference in how our congregational grounds & buildings meet our
neighbors.
On top of this, the mission team assisted in
removing the final items from the former Chat Room basement, spent 2
hours at the Cleveland Food Bank where they organized 3,150 pounds of
donated meats. The meat was sorted into chicken, beef, and variety
packs. Then they were weighed into 20 pound packages for readying to
institutions that feed the hungry. A second night the team walked over
to the Lakewood United Methodist Church and assisted in serving and
cleaning up after their Community Meal.
After having
been to S. Africa last summer and doing a variety of rehab work for our
sisters and brothers there, I can only hope you will contact Shades
Valley Lutheran, 720 Shades Creek Pkwy, Birmingham, AL, 35209, and
offer a note of thanks for all that we will enjoy.
15
missioners X 6 hours of work per day = 90 hours of work per day X 3.5
days = 315 hours divided by 40 = almost 8 weeks of work on our behalf!
Trinity supplied no cleaning products, paint, varnish, glass,
plexiglas, or mulch. This was all a gift of the mission team! All we
supplied was the place to sleep and a welcome touch with showers at
members' homes, one home cooked meal supplied by members, a call to
Lakewood Rec to get lower rates at the pool for the group, some
administration to connect with Lakewood UMC and the Food Bank, and a
willingness to say, "Thank you Lord for coming to help us!"
We continue to struggle as a small congregation. I thank God for the
respite we have had with this mission team's assistance. We can enter
the fall with a sense of "looking good" and moving into a new future,
with some renewed energies to maintain the labor the group has offered
us.
WOW! Can you say, "WOW!" with me? Please, take time
and write a thank you note and pray to God that such sweat, sunburn,
energy and faith will fill Jesus' youth for their future in Christ.
Pastor Paula
Here's a scripture I used at the closing communion with the Alabama team: Acts 20:35: "In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'"