To Serve...

Today was Septemberfest in the town of Nyack where my college is located. For one of my classes, 6 hours of community service is required. So me and a couple of friends signed up to help out at Septemberfest either collecting donations for homeless shelters, cleaning up trash or prayer walking. So we get down there, and it's super hot, and there's tons of people walking around the different vendors which were selling jewelry, food, art stuff, etc. Our first task was to go prayerwalking, which I was really excited about because I have never done it before. So we did that and came back and were told to empty the trash barrels on the streets. While we were taking a break, the girl in charge of delegating jobs and whatnot was telling us that we just want to, as a college, have a good reputation in the community because some things had happened a while ago which gave Nyack College a bad impression in the community so she said now we are working to build that good reputation back up. What I think it so cool about this is that we're cleaning up trash, and collecting money for homeless shelters. We're not in the faces of the people preaching at them...we're just serving and letting our actions speak for themselves. I love that about this school! We're not out to condemn people, but to serve them and love them so that they will wonder why we would do such a thing. And it was really nice when some of the vendors would thank us for picking up trash...because it wasn't fun, it really wasn't. It was hot, and the trash was dirty and smelly and we couldn't wash our hands...but it wasn't supposed to be fun. Still, I am SO GLAD that we had to do it. We were being Jesus to people in a real tangilble way. And I could tell from some of the looks we got and some thanks that people really appreciated it.