I wrote last time in ancitipation of our FLOWING event, which was scheduled for April 5. We were very excited and were bracing ourselves for all the impending logistical issues when 80-90 people show up on one city block on a Saturday morning to pick up trash. When April 4 came along, however, it had been raining for a few days and we were forced to postpone our trash pick-up. A few folks still headed downtown to help serve breakfast at the mission as scheduled, but the rest of us had to wait a week.

The down side is that only about half of those who had originally signed up were able to make it on the rain date, but those who came had a blast (as you can see in our new Flickr album).

We started in front of the mission at 9am as Stan the Man, on staff at WSRM, gave us the run-down. We then spread out around the mission grounds, to the park out back, and into the surrounding neighborhood. Judging by the smiles on faces you’d have thought everyone was happy to be there, millions of cigarette butts aside (seriously, who knew so many people smoked?!).

Also, money for the t-shirts keeps coming in and we hope to cut a check to the Blood:Water Mission within a week or so. At this point, it looks like we’re at $700 or so, with each dollar literally representing one person in Africa who will now have access to clean water for one whole year. We hope to push that number closer to 1000 before it’s all said and done. [UPDATE: we ended up sending in a check for $900. Thanks to all who participated.]

What we’re banking on here is that as a result of FLOWING some, four or five maybe, have caught a fresh glimpse of Jesus and what he’s up to in this world. Maybe they caught it in the smile of a toothless mission resident who helped us sweep up trash and was really excited to get a FLOWING shirt of his own. Maybe it hit them when they realized that all it took was a couple of hours and ten bucks to make this happen, and they began to consider what else could be possible. I heard someone say she had a great time, and now plans on volunteering at the mission, though she never has before.

Please join us in praying that with our lives, together we would say AMEN to everything God wants to do in our world and in our city.

Check out the Flickr album here.

This Saturday a bunch of us are going to be heading downtown to the Water Street Rescue Mission for FLOWING, a morning of community service - both in the sense that we will be serving the community of Lancaster and in the sense that we will be serving in community with each other. We’re really excited about it.

We plan to spend a few hours serving breakfast to residents at the mission, sorting donations in their warehouse, and spreading out around the mission grounds and into the surrounding neighborhood, picking up trash. If you’re in town Saturday morning, look for a bunch of smiling people with trash bags, wearing black t-shirts with the word FLOWING in yellowish/greenish neon across the front. Better yet, join us.

We made the t-shirts not because it seems to be some unwritten rule that you need to have shirts for Christian events, but we’re doing it as a way of intentionally rounding out the day. As we serve the community right here we don’t want to forget about those on the other side of the world, so we decided to include a shirt in the deal, with all the proceeds going to provide clean water to people in Africa through the terrific work of Blood:Water Mission. As we spread the word about this idea a couple of weeks ago, much to our delight someone surprised us by graciously offering to cover the cost of production so the entire ten dollars for each shirt will go to BWM. A one dollar donation to BWM is enough to provide one African with clean water for one whole year, and the World Health Organization estimates that 80% of disease in the world is attributed to lack of access to clean drinking water, so this is a really strategic way to be involved.

So let’s put this in perspective: we’re serving for a few hours together on a Saturday morning and we’re all pitching in ten bucks. At noon, several blocks of southeast Lancaster will hopefully be a little bit cleaner. Through the money we raise, close to one thousand Africans will have access to clean water for a year. And all of us who participate will have devoted a few hours to serving others, which really has a way of helping us grow in our walk with Christ.

But let’s be honest. By Monday morning, there will once again be trash on the sidewalks and in the parks (hopefully there will be less, but we won’t take care of the littering problem in a single morning). And yes, we can be excited that hundreds and hundreds of folks in Africa will have access to clean water, but there will still be 1.8 million people who die this year as a result of water-borne disease.

Faced with these truths, I envision a few possible reactions. We can choose to ignore the needs in our city and focus our time and attention elsewhere. We can choose to act as if the lives of millions did not hang in the balance every day. We can choose to pretend that it’s okay to live a comfortable Christian life. Or we can view this day - these few hours and ten dollars - as a catalyst. Having been stretched and shown a little bit of the world we might not have known about before, we can prayerfully consider how God might have specifically equipped each of us to uniquely invest our lives - as people being changed from the inside out - on behalf of the last, the lost, and the least.

If FLOWING ends on Saturday at noon, we have failed. But if what we are seeking to do this Saturday is still being worked out in our lives ten years from now, we might just be onto something.