“…as we sing…of the goodness, of God.”
That line is from the song we sang to end our devotions tonight. And today was definitely a day when we experienced God’s goodness.
We were all up by 7 am this morning and gathered in the church’s hall for breakfast at 8 am. Around 8:45 am, we were on the road.
This morning, most of the group were back at Gleaner’s, the food shelf distribution facility, where they were a part of an assembly line, putting together food packs for distribution.
The Gleaner’s supervisor set a goal of 600 food packs. Our group crushed it and did 700 packs.
A small group stayed back at the church and helped to load about a pallet and a half of food into the congregation’s food pantry. By the time we finished unloading and sorting that food, there was not time to meet up with the rest of our group at Gleaner’s, so we worked to prepare the meals for the rest of the day.
After lunch, the group loaded our vehicles and headed to downtown Detroit. There, we did a food distribution to folks downtown who do not have a place to call home. We had prepared some bag lunches and approached people to ask if they had a need. The smiles, the gratitude, and the genuine appreciation for a simple act of kindness blew away our group. As they gave the meals, our group asked if the people they’d met had any requests for prayer. Sometimes the answer was yes. In some instances, the members of our group even prayed for these people in need.
Tonight, at our devotions, many of our group talked about this as being both the high point and the low point of their day.
A high point, in that they had the opportunity to serve. A low point in that the need was so dramatic, and so apparent.
We returned to church to clean up and for dinner and then drove over to Rising Love Lutheran Church, an ELCA congregation about a half-hour away. There, we spent about 90 minutes with Pastor Michael Johnson, a pastor and friend of mine. He is doing some amazing work, especially in the area of helping people think about and talk honestly about racism. We wanted to hear about it. I once heard someone say that ” you cannot really understand Detroit if you don’t talk about race, racism, and its effects on the city.” Pastor Michael helped us understand why this was true.
We returned to Northline, ate some ice cream (always a great way to end the day), and then had devotions and went to bed.
We can all be so incredibly proud of our group. They are working hard to reflect the love and grace of Jesus. It was so apparent today in their words and their actions. It has been really fun to spend time with them and get to know them.
God’s Holy Spirit is at work in this group, and thankful for God’ goodness!
More tomorrow night!
Pastor Todd
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