Work Day 2: We're starting to stink

The Basics:
Each crew went to the same jobsite at yesterday: Tyler, Becky, Miss, & Neal to the warehouse and Austin, Bret, Brandon, Lauren, Erica, Nicole, Kim, Clare, & Casey to center city. The warehouse did more drywall work while the city did more lot care and roofing.

The Details:
Whenever teams come to serve with Crisis Response, most people come ill-equipped to do good work. Projects are not always done well the first time, and some need to be redone by another team. Both of our crews are spending some time correcting past mistakes, some from weeks ago, some from yesterday! The drywallers had to recut, retape, and respackle a lot of work. The roofers had to remove crooked shingles before laying new again.

Praise God for John Horst and Mark Lewis. They are experts when working with amateurs! They did a great job of teaching and equipping us for work…Ephesians 4:11-12??? They turned Miss and Becky into drywallers and Kim and Nicole into roofers. That’s awesome!

The City crew was able to lay out shingles on about one third of the entire roof today. The breeze and overcast sky kept things cooler, but the temperature deceived us in our sunscreen application. Austin and Bret are official rednecks.

A Reflection:
There’s only an aroma when there is contrast. The strange thing about smells is then when you’re around it enough, you forget that you’re smelling it. Whenever I spend time in Whole Latte Beans or Prince Street Café, I never smell anything while I’m in the café. When I sit with a friend, I don’t notice any smell on them when we’re in the café.

Outside the café, it’s a different story. My bag will smell like a coffee shop for days. I can tell if a friend was at Prince Street from their clothes. And the odd thing is, I don’t pick up on their scent if they stay in the café.

When 2 Corinthians tells us that we are the aroma of Christ. I think that’s true. I find that the more and more I spend time with Jesus, the more I end up smelling like him. The deeper I study his life, the richer the scent. The more I feast on his words, the more mine are flavored like his. That fragrance is strongest when I am closest to Jesus.

If I only spend time with other people who smell like me, who’s going to notice what I smell like? The aroma of Christ is most pungent in the smelliest areas. The words and deeds of our team stand out in greatest contrast when we’re outside Keystone’s walls.

I’ve loved getting to see our team love other people on this trip. They’ve served and sacrificed in ways I don’t notice during small group. There’s a generosity and humility I don’t pick up on on Sunday mornings. It warms my heart to see their patience and boldness with complete strangers. They are smelling like Jesus and I can smell it!