West Virginia Service

The West Virginia crew left Arlington around noon heading to Philippi to build relationships and mend homes.  During the weeks leading up to the trip they had been studying the story in Mark 12 about the widow who gave out of her own poverty.  A similar image came to me yesterday:

There had been a catastrophe of some kind and I was lying on the ground trying to patch up the wound of one of the people who had been caught in the debris.  As I tried to change position I looked down to see someone bandaging my leg that had also apparently suffered damage.  And someone else was mending a wound of theirs, and there was behind me, scattered across the whole field, people who had suffered damage – each person caring for the one before them.

We are not Super-people.  We are just people, and going to Philippi, WVa, to build relationships and repair homes is one way that twenty-four people from Restoration are engaging with people in this town.  It is inevitable that they will see their weakness and vulnerability rise to the surface in the midst of new experiences like this.  It can be very humbling to try to help someone else when we realize that we are the ones in need of help.

So please lift the team up in prayer as they recognize the “ceaseless renovation” that God is doing in each of them as they build relationships with both the Philippi and Restoration communities.  Pray for unity, safety, wisdom, perseverance, boldness, and insight as they serve out of their brokenness, their insecurities, and their poverty.