Sacrificing A Saturday Morning

This is a guest blog post by Yovaan Ilangakoon, a volunteer on one of our most recent Community Action Team projects

I decided to volunteer for the CAT projects as I support the message behind it and what it stands for. Speaking to James Baker, we were to volunteer cleaning up gardens on a ‘something for nothing’ basis. This approach of reaching out to the community by showing God’s love by lending a helping hand with a very real need, rather than forcing ‘religion’ on people appealed to me.

I got to the church grounds early on Saturday and the instructions for the CAT project were clearly laid out by the project leader for the day. The volunteers were split into sub-teams, enabling everyone to have a specific role. After praying for some good Ribble Valley weather we were off!

Seeing the site before we started work was quite daunting. I remember thinking we would be lucky to get the entire garden cleared and looking presentable by nightfall! Everyone on the team was enthusiastic to get stuck into their roles. The passion and encouragement demonstrated by the team was incredible. I’ve played in several sports teams before, but this team really did pull together and help one another out to get the job done quickly and efficiently. It was clear that everyone that was helping out was not only doing this to help out the owner of the house but also to reflect God in everything they did. Being relatively new to the church, the team were extremely welcoming. There was great conversation between us and it was a really good opportunity to bond with other members of the church.

Within a few hours the entire garden was clear of rubbish and debris. The time spent was worthwhile to see the look of amazement on the owners face once the job was done. She was still dumbfounded that people would give up their Saturday to voluntarily clean her garden. It was great to see the word been spread to neighbours about what had been done. Personally, I think a genuine act of kindness speaks volumes. Our work not only touched the life of that home owner, but also the neighbours. The seed was well and truly planted as the leaders spoke to her about Ribble Valley Church at the end and invited her to the service. We pray that through this project and the ones in the future that more people will come to know God’s love. Jesus sacrificed his life for me, so sacrificing a Saturday morning is a small price to pay!!

Romans 5:8: God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.