this ukrainian independence day (august 24th) we continued the tradition we began last year of a church picnic / beach clean-up day. our desire in doing this is to "seek the good of the city" (Jer. 29:7) and to show people the love of God in a very tangible way. we believe that such community service is a vital part of reaching the city for Christ. we have also been going out this summer and doing street witnessing every week, but the fact is that those whose hearts are not yet open to the gospel, though it is the greatest "good" we could do them to share Jesus with them, do not yet perceive it as such. in taking on projects to practically do good on a level people who are not yet saved can recognize, we are able to show them the love and care of God in a way they can understand it. since in ukraine there is really no concept of "littering" or "pack it in, pack it out", the parks and beaches all look about like this:
after a little of this...
(and by little i mean over 1,000 gallons (4,000 liters) of trash collected...)
the beach looked like this:
we had quite a number of people stop us and say, "this is great! i wish everyone cared about our city like this. why are you doing this?" we were able to answer them simply "because Jesus loves this city and we love Him." a few of the responses were ones of shock: "really!? you guys are from a CHURCH!? that's the kind of church i'd visit." our desire is to take on other community improvement projects as God leads us and resources allow. one thing we've had on our hearts for a long time is to repair some of the dilapidated playgrounds around the city and in so doing serve the mothers and young children that play there. please pray with us that these seeds of simple service would grow in people's hearts to the glory of God.
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