Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Hope Community Church: East Detroit.

The beauty of living a life for God is that there is never a dull moment. Strangely enough followers of Christ have had a reputation for being boring, stuffy, mundane and dull and I do know a few people like that. But the God I serve has chosen to surround me with people that are fun, loving, creative and crazy in love with the children of God. Where was this proven: on the last week of Kids Camp for the "Hope Community" kids.

On Tuesday of "Citiweek" WSM stu
dents took over Kid's Camp for "Hope Community", they wrote skits, learned and sung songs, studied God's word, came up with crafts and loved on kids they had never met. All of this plus more to show God's love to people that may not know love.

On Wednesday of Citiweek we took 40 "Hope" kids, 10 staff and 16 Woodsiders to the Detroit Zoo. I have to admit the details were a little distracting for me, transportation, food, weather, budget and safety all were on my mind the weeks before our trip to Detroit. Then as if I was being spoken to directly by God this verse came to me....
Proverbs 16:3 "Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed."

So I did just that, a few days before we left for Citiweek I sat at a picnic table at a park looking over and praying through the details of our upcoming trip. I prayed for each of the students in my group and committed each detail to God, even the silliest detail which I think was how I was going to get 50 "Happy Meals" from McDonald's to the zoo. Well, I can say with confidence that every single detail worked out perfectly, every student was wonderful, there was never a complaint or a bad attitude and each detail I had on a list was crossed off, not by me but by my detail driven God. The God of the universe, busy I'm sure, still took care of the details on a list that I wrote, right down to the silliest detail of getting 50 Happy Meals from McDonald's to the Zoo. Other precious lovers of God were used to help with these details, people that love the Lord so much that they would volunteer to spend hours right in the middle of their day to serve God by serving the people of Detroit. Amy for instance, who had just returned from vacation the day before drove from Oakland Twp. to Royal Oak volunteered to pick up 50 Happy Meals. Who would do that? Marlene and Sue volunteered to drive our students from Warren to Royal Oak so I could use the bus to pick up the "Hope" kids, and picked them up at the end of the day to.
Who would do that? Selfless lovers of God.
While at the zoo each WSM student was responsible for a couple of "Hope" kids, they took them to see the animals, carried them, talked to them, ate lunch with them, took pictures of them and it was nearly 90 degrees & raining for part of the day. Again, not one word of complaining and actually just the opposite, the WSM students amazed me at how kind and loving they were.

Emily, especially had her hands full she had 10 middle school students in her group. I decided to follow her group just as a back up, she didn't really need me, she did a wonderful job leading, playing, racing, and loving each of the kids in her group, all ten. Even at the end of the day when one of the girls was dragging her feet and was way behind the rest of the group Emily told her to hop on her back and she gave her a "piggy back" ride to catch up with the rest of the group.
Why would anyone do this? Well, from what I can see...because the love of Jesus pours out of the hearts of many people I know.
On Thursday the official last day of Kids Camp for "Hope Community" the WSM students took over again. This was kind of a surprise for us, we had been told we were going off site, but we stayed at the church and again pulled together with a skit, songs, and water play like none other. All of the kids walked a few houses down to a lot where we set up an industrial "slip and slide" which was loaned to us free of charge by another lover of God, and it was a huge hit. "Slip and Slide", water balloons, sidewalk chalk and squirt guns made for a fabulous end of summer party.

Why do the followers of God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit have a reputation for being boring?

Freedom in Christ can be clearly witnessed watching kids...we have freedom to do what we want to and all we have to do is to implement the simple standards God has set for us. I have never read in scripture where it says we can't jump, dance, laugh or throw a water balloon.

Psalm 126:2 "Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, The LORD has done great things for them."

The love of Jesus was shared with the kids of Detroit during Citiweek.




1 comment:

  1. I don't know if it's just me.. But this is all in webdings font soo I can't read it..

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