Step Out and Serve

Wow....I guess it has been a while since the last post. A lot has happened in the last 2 plus weeks. On August 26th our church participated in an outreach called Step Out and Serve. This was a really cool event. About 20 churches in the area participated and did community services for various organizations. The group I was with did some work on the Turning Point campus. Turning Point serves as a base for many Christian Organizations in the Omaha area. Some of these include the Omaha Street School and Release Ministries. This campus was huge! It was located on the old Nebraska School for the Deaf and is absolutely gorgeous. On a side note, I think that North Omaha is a really pretty area. I love the huge trees and hills. I have always been drawn toward there....I think it probably has something to do with my Grandparents. Anyway, the size of the campus also provided a great opportunity to do a wide variety of tasks. I was lucky enough to get put on gutter duty. They were replacing the gutters on an older house on the property and the real expert needed some help, and my services were requested. This was interesting work. We did seamless gutters, and it was neat to see what goes into that type of project. I guess I didn't think of it, but there is a lot of little details that need to be observed to make sure the gutter will look good and work properly. I did okay with the work. My tin snip skill left a little to be desired, and that tool belt sure does cause you to sway a little more on the extension ladders. But I managed to hold my own. I think I will continue to count cars for the railroad though. Toward the end of the day we also cut down a huge tree on their property that was dying. I have never seen a clearer example of how many hands make light work as I did on that part of the project. I think it was because the job was pretty self-explanatory. Big tree gets cut down. The men with the chain saws cut big tree into little pieces. Other workers move little pieces into a pile. Clean up twigs. It didn't take a foreman or supervisor to get us whipped into shape and put on the straight and narrow. We had about ten guys, and from first cut to a stump left took about a half hour to 45 min. What I took away from the day the most was how God truly put it on the hearts of these people to serve. There were probably 45-60 people on campus, and maybe it was only the people I was with, but I didn't hear one complaint. We all served with joy and a greater purpose. That is much different than my day job.