Community Makeover Weekend

I saw Jesus today.  Well… I didn’t actually “see” Him as in physically see Him, but I did see Him through the lives of the people from our church and the many other churches in our area that spent their weekend loving on and serving the people in our community the way that God calls us to.  God tells us that the greatest commandment is to love Him and the second is like it – to love others the way that He loves others. That love was shown in abundance this weekend.

Each year an organization called Engage Atlanta organizes an event called Community Makeover.  Individuals, businesses, schools or organizations with a need can submit a project for themselves or someone else.  Engage Atlanta will then disperse volunteers throughout the community to work on the projects.  These projects can range from handing out water to people enjoying the Silver Comet Trail to home repairs, painting projects, even building decks or replacing siding on homes.   This year appx 2000 people, from over 25 churches, worked on over 150 projects.

Our Journey Group worked together to love on a neighbor of one of our members.  Marie is a widow in her 60s.  She has severe diabetes and often has complications resulting from the disease.  She has two dogs who are the loves of her life.  Marie is very unsteady on her feet and her dogs have tripped her many times while she was taking them out on a leash. She even had to spend several months in a rehab facility from a recent fall.  Michelle, one of our jg members asked our group if we would be interested in building Marie a fence in her backyard so that she could just open up her door to let the dogs go out alone. Our group was very excited about the idea.  Michelle submitted the request to Engage Atlanta and they donated some of the funds for the fence and our group donated the rest. Some of the women worked on some housecleaning for Marie while the men worked on the fence.  We even got all of our kids involved with some landscaping projects and to help plant flowers. 

The joy on Marie’s face as she let the dogs out into the back yard to run inside their newly fenced yard was priceless!  She was extremely grateful and appreciative which made her very emotional throughout the weekend.  She repeatedly thanked all of us for our hard work and for loving on her in that way.  It brought our group more pleasure to serve Marie than she received from being served, proving Acts 20:25 to be true – “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”  We are called to be the hands and feet of Jesus.  This was a true picture of Jesus living in us and through us.  Not one person there was doing this to receive personal glory.  Every bit of the glory was for God and God alone.  Matthew 5:16 “In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” God was certainly glorified all throughout our community this weekend.