Building relationships through service …
Answering God’ s Call
By Stokes McMillan
Last Spring, a call was made seeking volunteers to help move furniture donated by the South Shore Harbor hotel to LCM. I joined a half dozen or so women and men who responded to the need and spent one warm morning moving a variety of furniture. One man helping to move was a nineteen-year-old resident of Bacliff. As he and I talked during the course of the morning, I learned that he had a four-month-old baby, no job, no transportation, and, it seemed, not many prospects for improvement of his situation. He was a very nice, well-mannered, respectful young man, the kind of guy you want to help.
I asked this young volunteer from Bacliff if he had ever considered joining the military. I have witnessed first-hand how the military has lifted young men and women out of a disadvantaged or troubled background and provided them with structure, discipline, honor, and occupational opportunity, in some cases completely turning their lives around for the better. He said that he had planned to enlist and had actually talked to a recruiter. He explained, however, that he had failed the exam that all potential recruits must take to enter the military. Thus was I introduced to the ASVAB( Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery).
It seems that God wanted to use this encounter for something, for he put a powerful urging in my heart to help this young man. Coincidentally, a new program at my church was seeking initiatives to build relationships with people just like him. Creating a course to teach the subjects tested on the ASVAB fulfilled both needs. LCM cheerfully provided the necessary venue and equipment. When a request for volunteer teachers was made to my church congregation, rather than the 5 or 6 hoped for, a total of 27 teachers volunteered! It has been truly miraculous how
God has opened doors for this project. Our first session of ASVAB courses has allowed us to work with six young men who regularly attend the three-hour sessions two nights per week.
Personally, I have learned so much from this endeavor:
• When there’ s an opportunity to help God’ s people, do it, even if it is something small— like moving furniture. You never know when God will use it to bring on something bigger.
• When your heart senses that God is telling you to do something, move out on it. If it’ s really from God, he’ ll provide the resources.
• Finally, while my physical hearing seems to be declining with age, my spiritual hearing is improving. And that is a trade I’ ll take any day!
Thanks to this project, I have a new favorite bible verse:
“ Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”
Galatians 6:9( NIV)
“ It seems that God wanted to use this encounter for something, for he put a powerful urging in my heart to help this young man.”