Friday, August 18, 2006
Philly Part I -- Mission Work
THe Lord said that when we help the needy that we are helping the Lord. Or in other words we are doing the Lord's work and the Lord's will when we help those in need. People in need can mean many different things. It can mean helping a neighbor or friend or family member. In this instance it meant driving 14 hrs to Philly, Pensylvania to work with a company called CSM (Center for Student Missions). CSM organizes mission trips, so that all we had to do was show up and let them tell us where to help. CSM meets with Food Banks, Mens/Womens/kids shelters, and other non-profit businesses in cities all around the United States. We took many of our high schoolers from our church youth group to Philly and we learned a lot. First we learned that Philly is in a great amount of need. There are so many people who need food, shelter, and jobs. Did you know that the average age of a homeless person in Philly is AGE 9?!? Craziness! Each day we spent the morning working at a different food bank or shelter or mission or thrift shop mission. Many afternoons were spent working at a kids "day care" where there were about 50 kids age 4-15 or so. We mostly just played games and got to know them. Each day they were more excited to see us, which made it fun to go back too.
A different afternoon we spent cleaning up a block long sidewalk which was across from a park. A person named Hubie moved in from the countryside outside of Philly(a white guy no less) and decided that if a drug lord can move into a community and ruin it, then a Christian can move into a community and uplift it! What a great theory! Of the block long sidewalk we filled 8 huge black tarp-like garbage bags full of trash. We found about anything you can think of, sadly including syringes. Hubie and his family and volunteers have been slowly cleaning up the park and are expanding now past the park for the past 10 years or so. Philly gave them a 3rd place award recently for most improved block! Also, the main drug lord on the block is now a Christian and is working for Hubie!
On a different evening we went to a very nice park in the city of Philly-I think Love Park-and we handed out water and handed out packed lunches. We had packed lunches earlier that day for these people. We didn't just hand out the food and water, but we sat in the grass and talked with each person for a little bit. Most of them we asked if we could pray with them and most said YES!
What I also thought was interesting was that as the week went on we noticed less of the trash and the dirtiness of Philly and focused more on the people of philly. It was as much of a shock coming back to Zeeland noticing how beautiful our town is, as when we first arrived in Philly and noticed how dirty and ugly that big city is.
Now I must mention that Philly has some very nice areas also. Philly is very well known for their murals all around the city. You can see them all over the place. Our host told us that there are over 500 murals, and what amazed us is that there is not grafity over them! The murals were often as big as one whole side of a building and even had a yellow brick road on the sidewalk for like 3 blocks long.
Overall we felt very enriched by our week in Philly. We helped people and we learned about our world and how good we have it. Plus we survived a week of weather consisting of 105 degrees fehrenheit or more each day! God gave us great strength all week long!
A different afternoon we spent cleaning up a block long sidewalk which was across from a park. A person named Hubie moved in from the countryside outside of Philly(a white guy no less) and decided that if a drug lord can move into a community and ruin it, then a Christian can move into a community and uplift it! What a great theory! Of the block long sidewalk we filled 8 huge black tarp-like garbage bags full of trash. We found about anything you can think of, sadly including syringes. Hubie and his family and volunteers have been slowly cleaning up the park and are expanding now past the park for the past 10 years or so. Philly gave them a 3rd place award recently for most improved block! Also, the main drug lord on the block is now a Christian and is working for Hubie!
On a different evening we went to a very nice park in the city of Philly-I think Love Park-and we handed out water and handed out packed lunches. We had packed lunches earlier that day for these people. We didn't just hand out the food and water, but we sat in the grass and talked with each person for a little bit. Most of them we asked if we could pray with them and most said YES!
What I also thought was interesting was that as the week went on we noticed less of the trash and the dirtiness of Philly and focused more on the people of philly. It was as much of a shock coming back to Zeeland noticing how beautiful our town is, as when we first arrived in Philly and noticed how dirty and ugly that big city is.
Now I must mention that Philly has some very nice areas also. Philly is very well known for their murals all around the city. You can see them all over the place. Our host told us that there are over 500 murals, and what amazed us is that there is not grafity over them! The murals were often as big as one whole side of a building and even had a yellow brick road on the sidewalk for like 3 blocks long.
Overall we felt very enriched by our week in Philly. We helped people and we learned about our world and how good we have it. Plus we survived a week of weather consisting of 105 degrees fehrenheit or more each day! God gave us great strength all week long!
