This week in Johnstown Pennsylvania I saw the body function properly and it gave a lot of hope.
Missions teams love construction projects because they’re easy to plan, granted that you have the right tools and materials. When you’re done, you have something to look at and know that you were effective in your task. People are harder to see God’s work in quickly.
At Crucified Church in Johnstown – the only church in town willing to host 40 participants overnight and 80 for supper – we had a LOT of construction projects going. Scraping walls, mudding walls, painting, dry walling, plumbing prep, kitchen sink reno…
It was a flurry of activity with 30 or so participants working on the church building.
I went downstairs to see how lunch clean-up was going, and was shocked to find no-one. Then I went upstairs again and only found one or two leaders! Where did thirty people manage to disappear to? I asked someone.
“One of the church members called, almost in tears. Her husband is immobile with injuries, and their living is in goat farming. Last night coyotes got into the goats and killed four of them. When the construction teams heard this they all jumped into the vans and went out to build her a proper fence to protect the goats.”
While the church projects sat unfinished Monday, half painted, mudded, sheeted, cleaned, or scraped… they got finished another day. The church body was being cared for. The priority was body first, building second. And the blessing in return; a LOT of work, love, and appreciation on the farm; caring for the needs of those who couldn’t meet their needs at the moment.
“But godliness is actually a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment, For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either.” – 1 Timothy 6:6,7
