MAKING A DIFFERENCE
The title of this article is so common, and often so abused, that you can easily shrug it off thinking I’m about to ask you to do something you don’t want to do. Just hang on for a minute. Okay?
While assisting in the kitchen for our Loft’s “Faith over Fear” camp, I witnessed adult and teen volunteers leading and assisting with tasks that made our 5th & 6th graders summer come alive with spiritual growth and much needed fellowship. The kids were (as we Okies say) a real Hoot! And us kitchen helpers (led by Donna Harrold) were never without something to smile or laugh about.
I’m sure, through the years, I have volunteered many hours in service to church and community, but this experience reminded me, once again, of the joy of saying YES when the opportunity to serve is present. Did it interfere with my time? Of course, it did! Doing anything outside one’s daily/weekly routine is almost always interference. After all, I was preparing for a Feral Hog hunt in southern Texas, and I had things to do. But, while I was volunteering, I got to help Kiley Miller make potato salad (never made that stuff before), sharpen knives, cook pancakes, serve breakfast, lunch and supper (yup, with very uncomfortable mask, gloves and apron on) and then I got to wash a lot of kitchen stuff by hand because that church dishwasher and I are not on speaking terms. Did you ever open that thing, reach down to get the (so called) cleaned items, and go blind because of steam on your glasses? I think my nose got scalded. That’s it! I’m done with that apparatus.
Just like you, I don’t have to (or need to) be involved in everything that comes along, but I can do something that makes a difference. Thanks, Norma, for prodding me just enough to say yes. I hope all of us Northsiders find something we can do to make a difference in the lives of others who are trying to walk in the same footsteps of our Savior that we are trying to walk in.
Now, that didn’t hurt, did it? Go make a difference!