serveRDU 2012

ServeRDU 2011 from The Summit Church on Vimeo.

every summer my church puts on serveRDU which is basically a week of work projects and community outreach in raleigh, durham, chapel hill, and other surrounding cities. our mission is simple. we serve because Christ served us. we love because Christ loved us.

projects during serveRDU range from painting and landscaping to helping build houses with habitat for humanity, from hosting neighborhood cookouts to putting together hygiene bags for women and children in india who are victims of sex trafficking. there is such a wide range of opportunities that anyone could find a project to get excited about. i got involved last year and had a really great time. you can read about it here. 

this year i was able to help with a work project at the pregnancy support services of durham and volunteer at a red cross blood drive that our church hosted. 

the offices at pss needed deep carpet cleaning, dusting, bathroom cleaning, painting, shelf construction, mopping, etc. my team met around 9 on friday morning, and after a brief introduction and tour of their facility, we went to work. i vacuumed couches and floors, carried boxes of supplies from one room to another, dusted, hung mirrors, scrubbed walls, rearranged furniture. lots of work, but it was a lot of fun. the ladies who run the place were so grateful for our work and the volunteers were so friendly and willing to help. the thing i love best about manual labor is the way you feel after you have worked a few hours, exhausted.

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the red cross blood drive was my favorite project out of the two. i had never been involved in a blood drive before and didn't know exactly how it worked or what to expect.

i slipped right into the role of snack hander-outer, and i got to talk to each donor as i poured orange juice and handed out cookies. ya'll, people are nice. everyone was willing to talk and answer questions i had about the process and how painful it was (not very). most of them had donated before at various times and all had good experiences to share.

i hadn't planned to donate blood. actually, i had planned to definitely not donate blood, but there i was with almost everyone around me donating, and i caved. i donated. it wasn't nearly as scary as i thought it was going to be. as always, my fears were mostly in my head. the ladies took very good care of me, and i even got an oversized t-shirt for being the last donor of the day. oh yeah, solid score.

i had such a great time helping with serveRDU. it was a blessing for me personally, but to know that our church body became the legs and arms and hands and feet of Christ is what really strikes me. through simple acts of manual labor we showed our city what it means to love.