On SATURDAY (7.15.17) our church had their annual SERVE Day.
Outreach is not everyone’s spiritual gift (I can tell you right now, it’s not mine), but our pastor strongly encourages the congregation to participate one Saturday of the year and serve their community. It’s an effort that has motivated many people, and multiple churches across the country (+ other countries) participated with us on July 15th. Across Alabama, you’d see thousands of red shirts doing yard work, cleaning schools, remodeling houses, cooking meals, visiting hospitals, dancing with young kids, and so much more. It’s inspiring and so much fun to hear the stories at church the next morning! Oh, and you can always count on spending a little extra time scrolling on Instagram just looking at the photos people post 😉 😛
Aaron and I decided to serve those who were serving – so we went to Manna Farms (maybe 7minutes from our house) and helped some staff members lay out hotdog buns, chips, popsicles, and slice watermelon so that afternoon the Alabaster community could stop and get some grub.
We brought Rylie with us because all of our babysitters are Highlands people, and we wanted them to enjoy SERVE Day. Plus, we decided we wanted to serve as a family, so we made it work.
Because it was extremely hot + humid out (Rylie was a hot mess and we were constantly dribbling water on her and letting her chew on ice cubes) and she had missed her morning nap, we knew our Rylie-girl wasn’t going to make it as long as we had planned, so we wrapped up our projects, said “see you tomorrow” to some friends, and headed home.
Our involvement in SERVE Day ’17 was different then how I imagined it would be, but ultimately, I had to give myself grace because we had our 8 month old with us and that does limit what we’re able to do. BUT, the stories that we heard of how lives were touched just in our state was powerful! I can only imagine all the lives that were changed throughout our world.
We had a great time and I’m already looking forward to next year 🙂