Hello and Goodbye

This past weekend, we said goodbye to our teams from Oil City, PA and St Mary's, OH, and welcomed teams from Texas and Illinois.  I'm super excited about our new arrivals!  There are a lot of young adults (yesssssssssssssssssssssssss!!!!!) who seem passionate about sharing the love of Christ through mission.  The majority of the team from Texas has been here before and are excited to be back, willing and eager to do whatever needs to be done  Love that attitude!

But I'm getting ahead of myself, because as much as I'm looking forward to working with these new teams, the people who were here last week were also fabulous.  The team from Oil City included a lot of family groups, which was different.  I like the idea of mission work being a family experience, and while often, teams include some siblings, couples, the occasional parent-child, this last group included ENTIRE families, some with three generations!  How neat would that be?

One of those three-generation groupings included the lovely Miss Pat, 86 years old and on her very first mission trip.  Pat wasn't sure what she would be able to do on a work trip like this, but she was a rock star!  She helped organize the truckload of clothing donations brought by the St. Mary's team, she spent a morning bleaching empty water bottles that I'll be using to make bubble blowers.  I think Pat really enjoyed Sidewalk Sonday School, where she was the official Story Lady.  If I live to be 86, I hope I'm up for new experiences like Pat was!

 Holy clothes, Batman!

Miss Pat, the Story Lady

My favorite God Sighting this week...came from some folks working on a roof in the Tokio neighborhood.  This team understood that while they were on a work trip, they weren't just here to build houses, they were also here to build relationships, so when the two young girls who lived in the house came around, they took the time to stop working and talk to the girls.  The girls shared caramel rolls, which they'd made at summer school that morning, and orange KoolAid with the team, and while they ate they all got to know each other.  One of the little girls asked where the team was from (Oil City), and where that was (Pennsylvania).  "Wow, that's far away, isn't it?" the little girl asked.  Well, yeah, it's pretty far.  "You came all that way to fix our roof?"  Well, yes, they had.  "I feel so special..."

I cried.

When the roof was done, the girls presented the team with a tattered copy of White Fang, their favorite book, and probably all they had to give.  The relationship that was built last week will last far longer than the roof.  That's church, folks, right there.