Reflections on GHH Focus “Wednesday”…

Note: For those of you who don't know, our faith family works with the Churches of Christ throughout southeast Michigan on a redemptive social outreach called God's Helping Hands. Every third Saturday of the month is called a "Focus Saturday." The focus this month is on the providing gifts for the underserved and downtrodden members of our community. This is the biggest day of the year for GHH and a great blessing to families who would have neither food nor gifts for their children during the holiday season if not for the work at GHH. In the midst of a season where people tend to make their own wish lists, it is a chance for the churches in this area to be counter-culutral and buy gifts to give to those less fortunate members of our human family, instead of simply filling our own stockings. Pray that lives will be touched and that the redemptive new creation of God will break into the world through our small acts of justice.)

I am overwhelmed by the new life the Spirit of God is breathing into our family at the Lake Orion Church of Christ. Over the past two months I have been amazed at the ways people have been desperate to not just exegete Scripture intellectually, but have been craving the embodiment of the Scripture, to live out its story in their lives.

Last night I watched 29 members of the Lake Orion church family interpret and embody Matthew 25 at God’s Helping Hands. They gave of their time and energy solely for the sake of the least of these of our society, for those who are hungry and thirsty, for those who have nothing to give their kids on the day the world stops to celebrate the birth of our Savior.

More than that, they were also embodying what it means to be the church. For me, one of the greatest and most encouraging things about last night was that everyone was there working together. I watched Darrel and Carol Ashby working right alongside Meagan, their granddaughter. Not only that, they brought in a huge stock of Beanie Babies^® to bag and give as gifts to deserving children. I witnessed Carol Van Hooser teaming with Lydia Moreau to carry bags of clothes. I watched Anna Borchers working with Natalie to organize games and puzzles and Sharon Heskitt working with Anna, Elise, and Courtney to hand me hangers to re-hang out high and of reach. I watched Allison Bridges working with Nell Bone to organize infant toys. Glen Renaud was working with Phil Travis and Ken Mitchell to organize and store the clothes in the pod. Kevin Kadrich, Jack Wilson, Ed Moreau, and Tim Kern brought over two truckloads of household goods and toys from a storage unit. Lake Orion members lined up together, forming an ‘assembly line’ to unload the truck and bring the boxes into the GHH warehouse. Gayle Mitchell and Marilyn Felts spent time organizing children’s books, videos, and music for Saturday’s Christmas shoppers. To watch Tracy Van Houten working and organizing boys gifts until long after most people had headed home and Ginny Wilson vacuuming the front room and Esther and Lydia bagging red and green M&Ms^® as the hands on the clock rounded 9:30, it was humbling.

Oh, I am rambling now, but the memories are so vivid and alive in my mind that it is hard to not ramble. (Oh, and I wish I could mention everyone by name, from Kyle Stigall and Elliott Kern to Julie Boyd, Karen McClure, and Don Bone, but there is neither the time, nor the space.) When I reflect on the broad cross-section of people who worked last night and, most importantly, the way they all were able to work together, from a 4th grader to our most mature members, I am dumbfounded. It was a beautiful thing, an evening of grace.

I pray that all of you will be able to join together in experiencing this breath of the Spirit of God at GHH this weekend.