I wrote briefly about my introduction to Friends For Life if you wish to read that blog it is in the archive section titled Friends For Life. While the aim of FFL is to continue to help the young adults grow in their faith, Friends For Life aims to create a place for community and service. Often the young adults use social media to stay in touch and before Covid-19 many of the young adults worked in a small coffee shop provided by the Journey Church and did various projects around the property.
When Covid-19 hit it was decided to close the coffee shop and postpone Friends For Life until such time as it was safe to meet publicly again. As a team we decided to move our meetings and small groups to the zoom platform. Far from perfect, our desire was to continue to stay in touch realizing the importance of community. We simply could not risk exposing the young adults to the virus.
Thanks to the creativity of the leadership we were a few months ago able to pull off what we called a zoom retreat meeting Friday night for a time of worship and even a social distancing dinner. On Saturday the young adults tuned in via Zoom to hear messages of hope and take part in craft projects, games, and even a dance. Meeting Sunday night for a closing celebration.
Last week, we put the word out that we were going to have a small service project that would benefit a nursing home that has been on lockdown since March. With our knowledge of how well the weekend retreat worked out and finding a place where we could safely socially distance. the young adults set out to create gift boxes for the residence of the nursing home. Each young adult made many gift boxes each with their own unique design. This gave many of the young adults the opportunity to both socialize and to give a little something back to those who likely have had little contact with others outside the nursing home and it comes at a time of year where we think of friends and family the most and where the elderly population feels the most lonely a small gift can mean so much.
I hope as we enter this season of celebration that we each find some way of reaching out to someone in need. Perhaps you have little to give in the way of a gift but many of the most important gifts don’t involve a physical gift. It may be as simple as doing something that someone needs done or it could be as simple as spending time together and sharing an encouraging word.
The above photo was taken as we wrapped up the service project.
Thoughts? E-mail: francisearly@francisearly.com
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