Service with a Smile

When our family lived in Jingzhou, Lisa and some of the other Christians were really involved with the kids at a local orphanage. After our move to Shaoxing, we looked around for other similar service opportunities, but nothing ever worked out. We feel certain that sacrificial love (especially to those who need it most) is an important part of being disciples of Christ. We've fallen short of our goal of finding a consistent way to serve, but this last semester the students in our weekly meeting all joined together to serve in at least one way.

Over the course of two weeks we read and talked in groups about how God views us, how he loves us, and how valuable that makes us all. The next week we challenged the groups to come up with some real ways to serve, love, or encourage some people. If every person is really made and loved by God, then we should all put that truth into action. There were suggestions to give nice water bottles to the older people whose job it is to walk around cleaning the city (in the heat, cold, and rain), financially support some poor children in western China, and encourage some sad classmates. Finally, the idea to give water and water bottles to the cleaners won out.

Within a couple of weeks some people had gone to buy water and water bottles together. Lots of people also gave money to pay for the project. Then we split up into groups of two or three to go out and give out the water bottles. There were only about 20 of us, but some groups gave gifts to and thanked 2 or 3 cleaners. I love the image of 20 Christians and non-Christians going out from this place and spreading across the city to show a little bit of love to those cleaners who are usually taken for granted. The next week people shared stories about how it went. People were giggling and smiling as they told about how surprised and thankful people were. In some cases, big crowds of cleaners gathered around just to see and hear what was happening.

This was a small and simple project, but I think it was meaningful for a few reasons. First, it reinforced through real action the truth that all of us are made and loved by God. Even the lowest in society who are often ignored are valuable to God. Second, it showed that being a disciple of Jesus is more than just coming to meetings and talking about the Bible. It means going out to do what Jesus wants done. And third, it was a little taste of the Kingdom of God. No matter how many of us there were, whether or not we're all Christians, and regardless of how it affected us - as a group we went out and made the city a slightly better place. We spread God's love around by loving the unloved. We took the good things that most of us experience and shared them with people around us. And last of all, it showed these young students that they have the power within them to change the world. They are important and powerful individuals. As a group, they can be used by God to go bring light into some slightly dark places. The students thought up the idea on their own and went to bless the cleaners on their own. God worked through them and hopefully, those students know that He can and will KEEP working through them!