Our little church in Pinch, WV has provided lodging to church youth groups who come to our area in the summer to do repair work on the homes of needy or elderly people for over 15 years. The youth groups usually stay for a week. We typically host 4-5 groups in a summer. These young people and their adult helpers have done some incredible work for the people of our community over the years. They have been a true blessing for our area.
A lot of work has to happen before these groups arrive. All the projects need located and evaluated which is extensive when there are 4-5 groups coming. We have one lady, Ellen, who has been setting up the projects and coordinating with the incoming church groups since we started. Ellen after her many years of service decided to retire to a less active role.
At our Parish Council meeting in January we had a lively discussion and some tough decisions to make. We have few young people in our church since most of our members have grown children and our area hasn’t had a lot of growth. We needed to find a replacement or replacements for Ellen and that would be difficult. We had several members that were worried about things getting broken by the groups. We have had very few problems with this over the years. When that many people are in a building there is always some normal wear and tear. Most of our council members felt this is a small price to pay for the work that these groups do for our community.
The easy decision would be to quit. But leaders don’t do what is easy. They do what is hard. Leaders don’t just make decisions for today they make decisions for tomorrow. If we chose to quit it would be very difficult to get the groups back and restart the program. Fortunately we have some leaders on our Parish Council who were able to convince the others that we needed to stay the course because it was the right thing to do. We eventually found the volunteers and continued the program.
Our first youth group came in on Sunday. They made the decision to come back over a year ago. This particular group from Pittsburgh has been coming to our church for the past 13 summers. What none of us knew months ago was that last week our area had a 1000 year rain event. Hundreds of people lost everything. Homes were just washed away. Many others had feet of feet of water in their homes and everything was destroyed. Thanks to the decision they made last summer and that we made as a church to continue these 70 plus young people and adults were in Elkview, WV at the right time to help a lot of people who desperately needed them because of the flood. Leaders make decisions for tomorrow. But I believe that God’s hand is in this decision. Thoughts to ponder.
© 2016 Greg Kozera