Sunday, July 8
At the 10 am service we were commissioned for our week of service in Detroit as part of the Motown Mission Experience – it was really nice to have the congregation pray over us and wish us well!
At 3:30 we met back at church, loaded up and headed to Metropolitan United Methodist Church in Detroit – one of the coolest, biggest churches in the city. We blew up our air mattresses and got settled in before dinner and some orientation from the staff of MME. We ended our day in prayer for a great week!
Monday, July 9
We had breakfast and loaded up the van and headed out to our work site for the day. We took part in the clean up of an abandoned lot and apartment building along with the other MME groups as well as a few other groups. It was a lot of work! There was a lot of weeds and even more garbage. Our kids did great – they worked all day and their spirits were high. We had water breaks and a lunch break, but other than that we were working! At one point, a resident of the neighborhood, Bob, came by to see what all these folks were up to. He then called the local news to tell them to come out and cover this “good news”! They told him they didn’t have anyone available to came out. He was frustrated and told them that he knew if he shot someone they would be right there in a minute. It was a great example of all the things that never get on the news! At the bery end of the day our group had moved to another house about a block away to clean up the yard. It started to rain and then rain harder and harder until we called and loaded up. As we were loading into the van, a neighbor came out to give the kids water. It was a very thoughtful gesture. He told us to wait a minute and came back out with beer for the adults. We all laughed pretty hard at that 🙂
After work we went back to the church to cool off, shower and relax before dinner. In the evening we had devotions on the idea that we are a letter from God to the world – that God writes on our hearts so that we can show the world God’s love. Being the love of God for the world means we can go from place to place and person to person without ever wearing out or getting stale, much like a fruitcake, according to our student leader, Brandon.
We had a great day! Even if we are a bunch of fruitcakes.
Tuesday, July 10
This morning we headed out in our van to our new work site. We are spending most of this week with a group called Rippling Hope. Rippling Hope works very closely with block clubs and neighborhood associations to identify homeowners that could use some help with repairs to their homes. They have 410 requests for this summer! So we are with them for the week to see how many of these requests we can knock out 🙂
Today we worked at four different homes – we caulked, painted, cleaned, weeded, painted and painted. One of our guys, Austyn helped hte group a lot with his knowledge and everyone did a great job talking with the homeowners, keeping busy and staying positive.
After our work was done we took a little adventure to the east side of Detroit and visited Belle Isle and the Hidleberg project. At the Hidleberg Projectm when we told the woman working there what we were up to, she brought out a can of paint and let us paint a dot in the middle of the street to add to their art – very cool!
When we got back to the church we were so happy to see familiar faces as members of Redford Aldersgate came to cook dinner! Some kids got to see their moms and we were all just happy to see the faces of our church family who love and support us.
Our devotions tonight were all about faith in action and we all agreed that it isn’t just about talking the talk, its about caulking the caulk.
Pictures coming soon!
