“As the pastor, you would think I would have known this, but I was surprised at the number of guys in our congregation who unloaded tools and materials from their cars,” deadpans David Shaw. “Apparently they drive around with all their tools in the trunk, like they do this sort of work regularly.”
The enthusiasm reflected the eagerness of the church to help the foster mother, who works full-time as a special education teacher. “She’s a very special person,” says Shaw.
The woman attends a different church, but her mother attends Covenant Community. She also had accompanied members of Covenant Community on a mission trip to Romania.
During the “local mission trip,” workers completed numerous projects:
• Laid floor tile in a bathroom
• Installed a garage opener
• Cleared two trailer loads of brush
• Patched a hole in the roof
• A professional artist in the church painted a mural on two walls of a child’s bedroom
• Repaired a water leak
• Trimmed trees
• Re-screened the entire back porch
• Pressure washed the exterior of the house
“We see this kind of service as something we can easily do even though we’re a small congregation,” says Shaw. “It is a need in our community, and we have a number of folks gifted in carpentry and general home repair. We love serving someone and getting to talk about why Christians care for people in need.”
The work crew had several unexpected opportunities to share that message during the work day. “Something for which we were not prepared was that quite a few people stopped by thinking it was a giant garage sale,” says Shaw. “The shoppers figured that with that many cars parked along the street, the people at the house must be selling some great items,” he adds.
“It was fun to explain who we were and why we were helping this person,” Shaw says. “Next time we will be better prepared with church brochures and other information.”
A backyard neighbor attended the worship service the next day and signed up to be on the email contact list, Shaw says. “She had been looking for a new church home. We weren’t thinking of this as outreach, but it has that aspect to it as well as simple mercy ministry.”
This was the first one-day local mission project, but the congregation has been active elsewhere. The church has sent teams to Romania for three summer projects, and a team just returned from Louisiana where they helped complete construction of three homes. Members also have done similar work for a local ethnic congregation.
“Those experiences taught us how to organize and do a project like the last one, so we hope to continue with about one a month,” Shaw says.
“The monthly projects will probably be done under the name ‘Blue Thumb Ministries,” says Shaw. “It will target single mothers, families with disabilities and people of advanced age, anyone who doesn’t have family or other means of assistance in repairing problems in their homes.”
