Hands and Feet

Here are more thoughts from the Charleston Missions Trip.  The next team is leaving June 28th.

Saturday morning, we arrived at Seacoast Church's Dream Center in North Charleston to help them with their Adopt a Block . I was blown away with the amount of volunteers as we walked in the doors. The Dream Center has adopted 15 blocks around the church and each block has a Block Captain and a team. The teams go out each month and has face-to-face contact with every person they can on their block to help meet their needs

Mike, Andrew and I were on a team that visited two Spanish communities. The Block Captain started knocking on doors as we picked up trash in the parking lot. A few people came to the door and the Block Captain would engage them in conversation about their needs, clothes, food and talked about Seacoast Church. He also gave them a blank magnet the size of a business card on which he wrote his name and cell phone number told them if they needed him to call. He told us gangs often terrorize these Spanish communities because they don’t use banks, so they have cash on them and they won’t go the police for fear of retribution. We spoke with several people that have been victims of or have had friends and family killed by these gangs.

Another block over, Dean and Melody were working with a team that was helping a elderly cancer patient clean up her yard, repair her roof and put a dryer vent in her house. Two streets over was yet another cookout with a inflatable slide for the kids. Needs were being meet and God’s love was pouring out over the neighborhood that day

We were told a story about a woman who was about to give birth and stopped by the Dream Center, asking for a ride to the hospital. A lady from the Dream Center took the woman to the hospital. Then she called her block team and they stayed at the hospital until the baby was born. When the mother was ready to bring her baby home, the block team made sure she had clothing, food and a car seat, and they took her back home from the hospital. When the arrived at the house, they found almost no furniture and definitely no nursery for the baby. So the block team went back to the Dream Closet and picked out everything the new family would need. The next Sunday, the block team came to church, only to see the mother and new baby there.

Stories like these are constant reminders why we need to be His hands and His feet everywhere, every day.

-Bill