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WHAT AM I MISSING?
Reflections on “More Hands for God” Day
Gary Jerkins, Lawrenceville First Christian Church (DOC)
 It
is October 31st, 2009, 4:37a.m. I am lying in bed wondering what kind of
day the Lord has planned for me. In a few hours I will be on my way to
City of Refuge, a place I’ve never been, to help with More Hands for
God, a project I’ve never participated in. I’m supposed to lead a
team for “service evangelism.” I am going over my list of tools we might
need. Tool bag–check; rakes–check; shovel–check. As I load the last
items in my truck, I think, “What am I missing?”
I am not on the road for long before I
think of an item I forgot. I just tell myself that if I needed it, God
would not have let me leave it at home. With that, I continue on to pick
up the friend that is coming with me. As we make our way to the church
to pick up the chairs we’re hauling, we stop to get a cup of coffee.
Someone notices the tools in the truck and asks if we do landscape work.
It so happens that is what my friend does. He needs work, and this
stranger offers him a job to do some landscape work at a later date.
“What am I missing?”
While following the caravan of vehicles
to our destination, my rider and I speak about the many ways our lives
have been blessed. When we arrive for our day of helping, we start
unloading and setting up tables and chairs. The service evangelism work
in the surrounding neighborhoods is just about to be called off due to
rain, but just then the rain stops. “What am I missing?”
I leave the City of Refuge compound
following our guide, not knowing where we will end up. We pull into an
apartment complex that I have seen on the news many times, and never for
anything good; all I know is that our Lord will protect us. As the van
that I have been following pulls into a parking space, children from the
apartments run up to the van thinking they might get to escape for a few
hours from the battleground of violence and drugs they call home. The
look of sadness is overwhelming when they find out we are not there to
pick them up. “What am I missing?”
As I start working around the apartments,
all I can think about are the children. I don’t even think about where I
am. As I pick up the empty cans and trash, I don’t even notice the rain
that has started again. Just when I start to think am I really helping,
one of my team members approaches and asks if I am ready for an
adventure. “What am I missing?”
We pass apartments that look as if they
have been in a war zone—doors boarded up, windows busted out, and gaping
holes in the walls. As we descend a set stairs going to a basement, we
see a pit of cans, bottles, and bags of old trash that have been there
for who knows how long. It’s surely a health hazard. With a shovel and
rake we start cleaning this 4 feet x 8 feet pile of trash that is at
least 2 feet deep. That’s our last job for the day. It’s time to head
back to the City of Refuge.
As I walk back to my truck I wonder if we
helped in the way God wanted us to. I open the door to the truck and see
for the first time that Rev. Katie dropped off my reading for Sunday
morning sometime earlier in the day. The “Litany of Commitment” is lying
in the driver’s seat. God’s question to us, “Do you Trust Me?”, is
printed across the top of the page. “What am I missing?”
As I sit at home replaying the day over
and over again, I pray for our Lord to watch over and protect our
brothers and sisters, especially the children that are in need of His
help. I ask that He forgive me if I did not live up to his expectations
today. “Lord, what am I missing?”
Gary Jerkins and his family are
members at Lawrenceville First Christian Church (DOC).
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