Love Dane 2024 - Serving with Joy and Unity!
This was year four of our collaborative week of service, and do we ever have the stories to back up the momentum and value of this experience!
Most folks volunteer at one site: the site their church is working at, the site that works best for their schedule, or the one closest to their neighborhood. And with so many volunteer sites and different shifts, it’s hard to get the full view of this event. So, we gathered leaders to hear highlights about what God was up to in the midst of our serving together. The following stories are some of the beautiful things we witnessed.
“Parking is a challenge at West, and a teacher was trying to move in, but had to park blocks away. So while we helped her unload, she was telling people like ‘I haven't gotten a board yet for my room.’ Like, ‘this is my struggle,’ ‘this is what I'm dealing with,’ but ‘here's what I'm excited about.’
We just asked two questions, and she just needed someone to listen. We were glad to be there for her.”
Pastor Andrew Henderson and Pastor Caleb Atkins get into the work with servant-heartedness.
“I chose to serve at Leopold because a lot of the students that we serve at our after school program are students there, and a lot of our church babies go there as well. It was really good to make the connection with [another church's leader] and then also to have the opportunity to see the assistant principal and talk through some of our shared challenges at their school and our church. I want to figure out what partnership will look like moving forward, and to see how we can further meet those needs throughout the school year.”
“I met someone from Blackhawk who was sharing that their family is about to move to Oregon, in the next week or so. There was a couple from another church that lives in Oregon and they suddenly were connecting, like ‘Oh my gosh you gotta go here’ and ‘We'd love to meet you and connect you with this.’ I'm like ‘This is so cool: they’re from two different churches and yet now they're like
‘We'd love to welcome you into the neighborhood - what day are you moving on again? Here's our contact info.’’
Northside Christian Assembly members work hard to clean up at Mendota Elementary, a two year-long partnership that continues to grow!
“While we were serving, there were some really beautiful stories being told, of people who had recently changed churches and some of the processing that has to happen with that heartbreak, and there was just a sense of deep trust and and care, no bashing of where they'd come from or anything like that, but just a way of saying 'I found the right home for me in this season'
and the respect that was reciprocated from the other church leaders in that space was really beautiful.”
“I have visions of the flower bed being one that you drive by and it's just beautiful, with Black Eyed Susans and yeah the whole spill, but we can't keep it up, and new plantings take time. So I’m hopeful, because our school contact told us she could connect us with an ecology class. I'm hoping that we can make some connections with some of the teachers and kids through this, because if we could be impacting students as well, that would be really neat.”
The two ladies on the left were both Leopold students and have stayed in the neighborhood their whole lives.
“The assistant principal was there, discussing things that needed to be done: cleaning out closets, cleaning up the staff lounge, cleaning out laundry room and all the laundry that was left from last year - so like the jobs that nobody wants to do. And yet, there was Pastor Isaiah there doing it with a ton of people. It's just fun to see the familiarity grow [between Northside Christian Assembly + Mendota], and they really desire to build a lasting investment at there.”
Mary Anderson gives two big thumbs up for weeding and planting at West!
“So at Henderson Elementary, it was Pastor Andrew from City Church, coordinating it all, which he has done so faithfully for many years. And I love that about him because he just is such a ‘I want boots on the ground, I don't care where we’re sending money, I don't care about talking about things; I wanna DO it!’ Anyway, I also got to meet Pastor Caleb Atkins from New Beginnings. I took a photo of Pastor Andrew and Pastor Caleb and we were just joking about how they're totally in this thing for publicity - not! - cause they're totally not.
I love knowing that they're leaders of churches and true servants.”
“We had a gentleman come up with a pizza and he said 'is Tyler here?' We go, 'we don't have a Tyler; he must be inside.' Anyway, he was asking what we were doing there, and we said we're a church helping get these things neatened up, and he just kept asking us more questions.
There are people around, seeing what God's doing here.”
Volunteers pose with 2 of the 30 bulletin boards they decorated for Leopold Elementary.
“We had a volunteer from High Point Church there to serve serving right in the same area alongside one of the volunteers from Redeemer City, and it turned out that she is his eye doctor. He's like, 'I had no idea that you're a Christian!' Not that he was surprised perhaps but more like 'this is really cool!' It's like you're seeing someone in a different context and pulling back the curtain of it, and
it felt like 'we're all just here together.’”
Country View Elementary not only had the wonderful Nicola Porto at the helm of the projects, but Caleb Hill from High Point and Geoff Wood from Hometown Community Church in Verona joined in this year with members from their churches!
“Last year we volunteered at Henderson Elementary and it turns out my coworker lives in the apartments right next door to Henderson. She's a single mom and she had mentioned to me the Monday after, like 'Hey, were you out at Henderson? I thought it was you! I sat there all morning and my son went out as soon as you guys finished putting the new wood chips out.’ It feels really exciting that she has probably watched this happen again this weekend, because she's pretty uninterested in anything having to do with religion. So yeah, that's exciting to me, that
doors get to be opened because people are just watching other people working in their kids’ backyard.”
“A handful of the church members grew up going to Lowell; one’s dad went to Lowell and finished there back in 1941. Anyway, we went inside to get familiar with the space because we’re serving a meal there tomorrow. As we were walking toward the office, one of the ladies put her hand on a locker and said ‘this was my locker” with a smile. And then when we went into the cafeteria, the ladies sat on these wooden benches that have likely been there since the school was built in 1930.