Monday, March 9, 2015

Day 3 (cont.) -Another Beautiful Day

People who know me know that I can be overly romantic with my details, so I apologize in advance to my audience that dislikes flowery language.

Unlike Peter, the best part of my morning was waking up for reflection at 7am. I couldn't ask for a better wake-up than starting my morning with coffee, Jesus, and friends. For me, that hour was very Godly.

The time spent with Habitat for Humanity we spent putting some of the finishing touches on a house. It was a wonderful, down-to-earth effort at some good old-fashioned labor. Deep thoughts weren't necessary; we could just dig in and see work get done. At the end of our 3.5 hours with Habitat, there was a house filled with doors and blinds and counter-tops that weren't there before we came. As simple as that, we made a difference in Flint, Michigan.

But unlike our experience with Habitat for Humanity, there are many ways in which volunteers can make a difference that we may not see as clearly.

Our afternoon was spent at Northridge Academy, a charter school within fifteen minutes of our host house. There were many, many stories shared about the antics of the children that brought us to tears with our laughter, but there was also a number of moments where every one of us saw a taste of what many of the families of Flint are experiencing. Behind every action the children performed, there were probably many unseen causes. A "problem child" may be a suffering child, a distracted and un-focused child may have undiagnosed learning disabilities, and comforting hugs from children may bring them more comfort than we realize. Behind even a comical scene of a flipped desk, there may be a few too many children who are only acting out what they see at home. Our work in the classrooms was sometimes menial, and for some of us we just felt like distractions to the students and burdens to the teachers, but we can see that the children of Northridge Academy just need our love and respect. We know nothing about each individual child's home life, but we know that in general the family life of Flint suffers.

We pray every day that our presence can somehow bring a little bit more love and selflessness to this community.

Since arriving here, we have been blessed by the acceptance of so many loving people. The Wolberts, their friends Diane and Ellie, Father Tom, Pastor Wilkinson, and Sisters Judy and Carol (to name a few) have shown us so much of what it means to be giving and selfless. After sharing some of their many stories with us, Sisters Judy and Carol taught us a little about the beauty of service and interaction with other human beings: when we open ourselves to the work of the Holy Spirit, the God in us connects with the God in those around us.

A friend of mine once told me about the way he understood many things in life, death, and love: since we are all made in the image of God, and we are all considered a part of the body of Christ, and no two parts are the same (see Romans 12, verse 3 and onwards), each and every individual reflects a unique piece of God. When we truly connect with a person, we see that piece of God in them, and really it is a beautiful thing. When we lose a person to death or worse, we no longer see that unique reflection of God they embodied, and that in turn hurts us and makes us sad, because it is embedded into the very fiber of our being that we should desire to see God.

As we take on the rest of this week in Flint, we pray that every day we can come in touch with that piece of God in us and others and that we can help everyone here see a few more pieces of this puzzle of God....

Peace,
Mazie

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