Presbytery Day of Service Report: MDPC

After I mentioned on QG the Presbytery of New Covenant's plans for a Day of Service in lieu of a regular presbytery meeting, I received an
email from a reporter for the Presbyterian Layman asking who he should contact to get more information on the event. I suggested he contact our General Presbyter and Moderator, and he wrote a very nice article posted on the Layman site here. I didn't realize they were following my blog, either!

So here's my report on my church's project which was called Operation Compassion. Church members spent Saturday at Spring Woods Middle School, which is a few miles from MDPC and serves an economically underprivileged area.

As we came in the school's monument sign greeted us.

We went inside to register and get our assignments.

There was already a lot of activity, plus donuts, kolaches and coffee. If you feed Presbyterians, they will come!



I was assigned to the teachers project room. Here we were given miles of laminated activity cards for math classes to cut out and clip together. I was told that since the school doesn't have many parent volunteers this was the first time the teachers had this kind of assistance. And they really went to town! Apparently they had been organizing and planning for this since last spring when they heard we were coming. I appropriated a paper cutter and got to work.

In another area of this large rooms a couple of moms and several preteen and teenage girls were putting together "goody bags" for the teachers. I spotted some nice metal thermos mugs going into the bags, which were carted away and will be a nice surprise for the teachers on their first day back to work later this month.



Here's El Jefe at his duty station: rolling lockers. That meant he was tasked with changing the combinations on the lockers. Unfortunately most of them were near the floor. "This is a good job for a short guy," he said. Which he is not. Later in the morning I found him scooting around on a rolling chair he had commandeered from someone's office.





The school had a nice courtyard that needed attention, so here's a photo of some of our gardeners. The smell of mulch filled the air--even inside the building! God bless them all for their efforts on one of the hottest days of the year.






As we left, I got this picture of church and community families eating lunch together, courtesy of Chik-Fil-A. One of the organizers told me that more people were expected for the afternoon shift than the morning shift that we worked. There was still gardening, painting, locker rolling and paper trimming to be done!


It was a great day for the church and the school and the presbytery. If your presbytery takes the challenge and schedules a day of service, let me know!