service

WEll, we've had two intentional "electricity-free" nights, and one thunder-storm induced one. The whole house has really been enjoying these nights and the fellowship time that happens naturally when there are only a few sources of light in a three story house. After a while the little glowing cluster of candles in the middle of us feels more like a campfire than a supplement for electric lights.

Yesterday while the evening light was still coming through the window and we could still see eachothers' faces, we brainstormed together about service-project possibilities. We talked over all kinds of ideas, but for this month in particular, there's one kind of bizarre idea that Annie had that stuck out to all of us. I must admit, to those maintaining a very traditional idea of what "service projects" are, it may not fit very comfortably into the category. But perhaps there are some categorical walls to be dismantled here. We know only a few things after all, don't we? We want to be part of this little place called Millersburg: this little collection of people and the streets and sidewalks they build their lives in. We know that. We don't want to be strangers keeping to ourselves. We want to be woven into the town enough so, that the needs of the community start to become known personally... The distance fades.

The service project idea may not fit the traditional idea of "service project," but I think it fits pretty nicely into the idea of becoming present in this town. Our idea is simple: On some Thursday night before summer vacation, we would like to fill the back part of the parking lot where kids wait for their parents after school with games/mazes/pictures etc in sidewalk chalk. We'll have to cooperate with the weather on this, but the idea is to have a parking lot of little activities waiting for the elementary students as they leave school on Friday and wait for their parents to fetch them. If kids catch on and play, we'll join them!

Now, we want to be present in this community in all kinds of ways. I think this could be a really fun way to try to get a foot in the door, so to speak, but we've got our eyes open and our ears to the town around us. We want to be neighbors to the people here. We want to know the community well enough to know their need: to share in and feel their need in fact. We'd love any more ideas about how to do that.