Reflecting…

Roughly two years ago, my church began hosting the Learning Hub. It would be a semester-long adventure of making sure area elementary school students had a safe place with WiFi in which to do online school.

It was a tough journey.

There were a few days when we were short on volunteers. One of the families got COVID. The father was hospital-level sick. We shut down for the week and wondered who’d be next. (Gratefully no one.)

It was a beautiful journey.

Jami M. was an incredible example of “it takes a village” and helped me figure out how our space could function well, not only giving ideas but actually helping to prep the space and take it from idea to reality.

The idea came from Sarah O. We were talking outside our homes one day and as I wondered out loud what my church could do to help our community, Sarah spoke of the pods that were being created and that maybe my church could do something like that. (This is one of a million reasons why I value neighbors and love when they become friends.) I tossed out the idea in a Facebook group, which is how I met Jami, then to my church board.

At a time when surface contact was a huge concern, the vaccine wasn’t yet around, and healthy people were on ventilators, we gave some parents a bit more piece of mind—their children could still go to school and they could still work. Our volunteers, mostly UGA students, took a risk and I’m forever grateful. The ripple effects of this idea-turned-reality continue to amaze me.

We can’t do everything but we can all do SOMETHING. When we refuse to try, when we take to “minding our own business” so much that we tie our own hands, when we put so many barriers in place in the name of “people need to help themselves” and “I never had a handout”, we deny the power of God, the power of love.

“Love is patient, love is kind…” (1 Corinthians 13)

PS. Some of us are just realizing that we’re still emotionally tired from things that happened two years ago… “…love suffers long…” and we’re grateful for meaningful fatigue.