Love Your Neighbors

Sunday was the “God’s work. Our hands.” service day at our church. This was the second year First English Lutheran participated in the national event, which serves as an opportunity to celebrate who we are as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America – one church, freed in Christ to serve and love our neighbor.

We had a brief 8 a.m. service then, outfitted in our matching mustard-yellow shirts, split off into work teams to do good for our neighbors.

Service work offers an opportunity for us to explore one of our most basic convictions as Lutherans: that all of life in Jesus Christ – every act of service, in every daily calling, in every corner of life – flows freely from a living, daring confidence in God’s grace. As a congregation, we examined the many needs and determined what we could do to help make our community a better place.

All totaled, we had nearly 100 volunteers who did projects at a nursing home, elementary school, handicapped-accessible playground, Boys and Girls Club, the humane society, and The Family Center (domestic abuse shelter). We also had volunteers stay at church to tie fleece blankets for emergency personnel and The Family Center, assemble hygiene kits for Lutheran World Relief, and make lunch to feed us hard workers.

This year, I was with the crew at The Family Center. The projects were pretty basic – moving shelves and other items and scraping paint and re-painting signs. I was the paint stripper scraper person and two little girls and another mom painted while singing everything from Jesus Loves Me to Jingle Bells. Hey, we had to find songs we ALL knew!

Most interesting to me was seeing what they do and hearing about so many of the services I did not realize they do. In a nutshell, The Family Center, guided by survivor voices, works through  education and  community involvement  to eliminate violence and provide safety for all people victimized by abuse.

I knew their primary responsibility is to provide safe shelter 24/7 for people who are in crisis as a result of domestic violence. But I didn't realize they also offered support groups and provided advocacy services for any men, women, and children who are dealing with current and/or past abusive experiences.

I have donated clothes and food there and now realize that any of those clients – not just the temporary residents – can take advantage of the free items and the food pantry. The center partners with other agencies, such as the South Wood County Emergency Food Pantry, to be sure The Family Center has enough of certain foods on hand for those clients.

Did you know they also accept quality leftovers? Yup. If you host a big party for graduation or a shower or birthday and you have a lot of food left over, you can call and see if they want it. They said they most recently benefited from dozens of buns left over from the city Labor Day picnic and the gift of a ton of homemade soup they could divide into bags and freeze. They even got a whole pan of fried chicken recently that they could serve immediately to the residents.

I had no idea. I usually drop off my free frozen turkey from work at Thanksgiving, but now I will keep this in mind. And, of course, as I promised the director, I am spreading the word!

It was great to meet together for lunch afterward to see how our "little" projects could have a big impact on lives in our community.

That really is our hands doing God's work.