The world is always watching
Article by Beth Dodson
It was the end of a long, hot day when Joanne and Joe piled into the van with their teens from Heritage Presbyterian Church. They had just spent a week tearing down and rebuilding a deck for a family in Quarryville, PA. As the van pulled out of the driveway, a neighbor called out to them, “Great job, guys!”
“We’d been there all week and had never seen him before,” Joanne said. “But it just goes to show you, the world is always watching.”
In the last week of July, Good Neighbors hosted our annual summer camp, bringing together teen and adult volunteers from three churches to provide critical home repairs and restore hope to four families in Pennsylvania and Delaware. For these families, hope looked like a complete deck replacement, two roof repairs, and a front deck and ramp rebuild.
During camp, teens are presented with a unique opportunity to share in this kingdom work, to serve the Lord, and experience what it means to work as the body of Christ. “The on-site work allowed our group to bond a lot,” said youth leader Caleb of Newark EPC. “This was something new for all of them. A lot of memories were made up on that roof.”
In addition to on-site repair projects, camp involves a daily time of worship, devotionals, and a debriefing of the day’s work. “Our debriefs kept getting longer as the week went on,” said Micah, also a leader from Newark EPC. “Our group grew together from beginning to end. And in the end, they were really sharing life together. There was authentic honesty, deeper questions asked, and more conversations had.”
While camp gives teens a chance to bond with their peers and complete a service project, it also gives them an opportunity to learn new skills and become confident workers. Each church group works with a different project manager on-site who teaches them the practical skills needed for the work to be completed. “The project managers are really a great group of guys,” Joanne added. “They love Jesus. They’re good at what they do, and they go out of their way to work as if they’re working for Jesus himself.”
Good Neighbors’ summer intern, Caleb, also shared his gratitude and respect for the project managers as he took on a leadership role during camp. “I am so thankful for the different ways I’ve been able to grow through this [internship]. I’ve learned so many technical skills. The project managers taught me what to do, so I could apply that while leading others. I’ve volunteered for plenty of projects before, but this was the first time I’ve been on the leadership side of things, and I really enjoyed it.”
Good Neighbors provides critical home repairs to families in need because we believe we are called to follow Christ’s teaching to love our neighbor. For us, to live is Christ. Our labor is for the advancement of God’s kingdom. Whatever we do, in word or deed, we do it all to the glory of God. After all, the world is always watching.