One of my assignments yesterday (Thursday) when I was at the office was to contact our clients who had NWYM youth work teams come to their homes to help with various projects. All who I was able to talk with on the phone (some I just left messages) were just so appreciative for the work done and used words like “fantastic,” “great,” “so helpful,” etc. You could just hear the smiles and excitement in their voices.
So I thanked the kids and told them how appreciative our clients were. Rachelle asked me to tell a little bit about what Love INC is/does, so I did that. Then she asked the young people if they wanted to share their reactions to the service project. Every response given was positive. One girl stated that the client she had been assigned to had a daughter she knew from high school (there were actually 2 girls from Newberg that went to this same house). Her first reaction was, “Oh, how will this girl feel about us coming in and helping them?” The girl responded very well to their presence there and they felt like they accomplished much. Another girl stated that she was really wary about going into someone’s home to work, but that feeling went away after they got there and they just got in and did a lot of work. All the responses were along this vein. One even said that the lady gathered them together and had prayer with them before they left. They talked about getting to know the people they were helping. One girl mentioned about her fear of ladders but that a tree branch needed to be cut, and she went up the ladder and got the job done, and she felt really good that she was able to do that.
So in the end, the leaders asked if there were Newberg kids that wanted to volunteer to help sometime, and there were many that were interested. So it was a positive experience for them, and I thanked them again for blessing our clients.
-Terri Bowen, volunteer receptionist
AUG