Day 2: Work in Progress

Today we learned what it is like to be a work in progress.  After working so very hard yesterday, digging 20 holes for trees, picking up trash, cutting out openings in the shipping containers  for doors and windows, we came back to pick up where we had left off. However, during the night it had rained and we came back to 20 holes filled with water that had to be emptied. To make matters worse, the holes we had dug on Thursday, turned out to be too shallow to accommodate the trees that we had ordered and we needed to deepen them quickly since the trees were to arrive this morning.  Between volunteers from the community and Hopewell disciples, we started digging once again.

It would have been easy to lament our short sightedness on digging the holes so shallow but, buttressed by plenty of community volunteers, we started again with the pickaxe and shovel and finally pry bar to widen and deepen the holes we had dug yesterday.  Others began to paint the beams that we were going to use for the community center and still others walked around picking up more trash and playing with the kids. The kids painted rocks to put around the base of our newly planted trees with symbols of hope and joy. 

Later, we celebrated communion with the Plantjies community volunteers who had so vigorously worked on their new community center.  We gathered in a large circle, South Africans and Americans, joined by more than the hand of the neighbor we held, as we reenacted the age old custom of those who follow Christ and celebrate the love of God for us.

 As we offered communion to old and young alike, God’s spirit was moving through our group, filling us up and spilling out of us.  I walked around the circle with my good friend Pat Welch and saw person after person, taking the elements and filed with the Holy Spirit, raise their faces and hand to the sky.  It was a holy moment that only God could create and we were blessed to be part of it.



Later in the day as we gathered for our daily devotional led by Tracey Fernandez, we were challenged to understand how we might let go of our control of our lives and let God take control.  The God moments continue to multiple and we are all blessed to be part of His plan for our lives.

Pastor John Neider