This weekend I haven't seen any movies or watched any TV. Nor have I hosted any dinner parties or gone hiking, two of my favorite pastimes, yet I've had a terrific weekend of doing hands-on projects.
Yesterday I, my husband Collin, and three others from church drove to San Jose to paint at a men's rehab center sponsored by City Team. The men living there have taken the most difficult step, the first one, on the journey to transformation.
The proposed project was two dorm rooms, but it turned out that the Director, Charles, (due to being away for a conference) had forgotten to choose two dorm rooms and have them emptied. Charles asked one guy after another, "Does your room need painting." No, no, no.
We had filled up the back of our station wagon with the stepladders, brushes, roller, rags, cleaning solution, bucket and paint that I'd purchased this week (courtesy of my church) and were eager to do something!
Charles and our gang of five went upstairs to look at dorm rooms. I noticed that the combo pool and TV room had multiple blue chalk and brown/black markings on the walls. "Can we do this one?" Charlers was surprised, but gave his blessing.
It took an hour just to set up --getting the TV, bulletin board, shelves and games switch plates, and more away from the wall plus moving chairs and couches to the center of the room and spreading out tarps over carpet and furniture. Two experienced painters, one amateur (me) and two novices - starting to paint at 11:30 and intending to spread two coats on a very large room (40'x40'?). Could we do it and get home in time for dinner?
I overheard a young man talking to his wife on the public phone in the lounge. His words were a good reminder of why were were there. "She's got some very big decisions coming up. We need to talk with her. When you come to visit, let's do some Bible study." Very cool and we got to support that!
Many guys came by while we painted to take a look and express their appreciation. Others brought up drinks on ice and invited us down to lunch. At noon we weren't ready to stop since we'd just started the painting. By 12:45 we had two walls painted with their first coat, so we paused.
We were an unlikely team - a young woman from Singapore, one from Hongkong who told us she had never dreamed of doing something like this. Also, a tall fair guy from NY plus me and my Hawaiian-Korean husband. We all have different ways of communicating, different cultures. Working together could have turned out to be no fun at all - annoyances about being in the way or making mistakes. That didn't happen.
At 3:45 we started cleaning up and at 4:25 got in our cars . The living room upstairs was transformed, clean and bright with new linen-white paint. The residents by now have done the finishing details of reinstalling items on the wall and returning furniture to their rightful places.
And we were happy. We'd lived out God's kingdom of love, joy and peace as we related to each other and the residents.Perhaps what made the difference is how we started our time at City Team SJ -- Collin recapped a sermon about the gospel of the kingdom - bringing "shalom" to earth -- God's peace and the inter-connectedness of well-being. As we care for others, we are transformed ourselves and led into deeper joy.
Our project was one of twenty-seven being carried on in the 50 miles between San Jose and San Francisco. My contractor friend spent eight hours yesterday and another six today working at a NGO for at risk youth. Others assembled AIDS kits for caregivers in Africa, or did service projects for schools in impoverished areas. We were five of 3,000 participants in "Compassion Weekend"--a time our church sets aside its regular services to concentrate on serving in the local community and beyond.
I'm finishing up the weekend with getting soil ready for tomatoes, fertilizing my roses, pulling-up weeds, baking banana bread and reading on this "Lord's day" -- more projects where I experienced God's presence and his love for me as I participate in the good work of creation.
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