By Tom Drehmel, Chippewa Falls Mission Coalition
I have found that one of the most meaningful, powerful things you can do in your life is to touch another person’s life with the love of God.
I have been part of a group called the Chippewa Falls Mission Coalition (CFMC) since 2011. It currently consists of numerous local churches of different denominations, as well as a number of local non-profit organizations. Our goal is to work together to address various unmet needs in our community, as well as support each other’s ministries.
From the CFMC has come Hope Village/Tiny Houses for transitioning the homeless back into our community with the on-going help of Mentors and life-style changes. We also have a program called “Lighten Your Load,” where we have volunteers at a local laundromat who put quarters in the washing/drying machines and provide laundry soap for those in need.
We also support various non-profits in our community through volunteering, making donations, passing along information, and prayer, as needed.
One thing that all of this has in common is we encourage taking time to talk with the people we come in contact with through the various ministries we support. We have found that is a vital part of what we do and what is needed by those around us beyond shelter, food, and laundry.
An example of this is the time I was volunteering at Barnabas Table, a local ministry that provides a free warm meal on Monday and Wednesday evenings.
I had some free time before meal service and I noticed a man sitting by himself at a table. I could tell he was down on his luck by the way he dressed and by the way he looked. In any case, I thought I would take a few minutes and just visit with him. It was a simple conversation about ordinary stuff, I can’t even remember exactly what we talked about.
We talked for about 15 or 20 minutes and I started to get up because it was time to serve the meal. As I started to leave, all of a sudden the man looked at me and just said … “Thank You!”
This startled me a bit so I asked why he was thanking me. He said because of the way he looks, people often turn away from him as he walks down the street. He would rarely even get a simple “Hello.”
He said he wanted to thank me because I took time to visit with him, something he rarely experienced. It’s something I hadn’t really given a second thought. But to him, it had special meaning that someone cared enough about him to spend a few minutes in a simple conversation.
Sometimes from little things we find big things. Maybe people don’t need long sermons or religious words in their life, maybe what they need is just a moment of caring by another person. Maybe in that moment of caring is where God lives.