Cori had a great blog that she just posted that does a great job summarizing what we have spent the past week doing here at Casa Shalom.
AN INTERESTING WEEK~ Cori Smith
Our team thought we had a pretty good idea of what this week would look like. Remember 2 weeks ago when we spent 5 days going through boxes and sorting clothes? Well, that was all for the purpose of a “festival” (aka flea market) that happened here this weekend. The money raised from the sale is going to help children buy school supplies.
On Monday a large moving truck came, which we were aware of, so most of Monday was spent unloading the truck and then semi-organizing it. It was crazy, seeing another huuuuge truck coming with so much more stuff, knowing the ridiculous amount of stuff that we already had.
As the week went on our tasks were more and more random. We struggled with how to help, and what to do, and when to do it, and others’ perceptions of us. We ended up doing things like…
fixing bikes so they can be sold
clearing this area of brush and trees with our hands
(I wish I had taken a before picture!!!)
moving this pile of wood from the grass to the concrete
cooking for the masses
and loving on some pretty awesome kids
(to name a few…)
We saw this week that ministry doesn’t always look the way we want it to or how we expect. We struggled to see the bigger picture of these tasks and to let go of our expectations. We struggled with each other. We struggled with our attitudes. There were times this week where I had to retreat into a quiet room to escape the crazy scene outside just because of how much physical stuff was out there. There was just a lot of chaos and a lot of uncertainty.
