| |
PRESS RELEASE
CHECK THE INASMUCH OPERATION PHOTO GALLERY
To paraphrase Winnie the Pooh, “it all comes from being such a tiny church.”
Four years ago the congregation of Tappahannock Presbyterian church, which numbered around 40 with a weekly attendance of 18-22, wondered how such a small group of people could make a difference in Essex County. They had just hosted a seminar of speakers from various segments of the community- law enforcement, the courts, the schools, social services, and Bay Council on Aging. The needs were staggering in this small county of less than 12,000 people with a median annual income of $24,000 a year and one of the most under-served counties in the state. Where would they start? What difference could this handful of caring Presbyterians make?
 With the encouragement of the congregation and then-pastor Rev. Terry Robertson, Kathy Hughes and Alice Roye held several meetings with representatives from different races and denominations to discuss the overwhelming task. From this small group grew Essex Churches Together (ECT), an alliance of all Christian denominations in the county. For the first four years the primary service of the organization had been communication- sharing needs, seeking volunteers, and learning about resources in the community by hearing speakers from groups and agencies each monthly meeting. Church representatives reported to each other about projects and programs that were going on within their walls and other churches were invited to join in. A couple of emergency food drives were sponsored.
Last year the focus was the church’s role in community disaster. Support was given to the establishment of a Red Cross Chapter in Essex County. ECT became a member of VOAD (Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters). Information was shared with the county emergency services about facilities the churches could offer, and disaster preparedness and neighborhood disaster plans were disseminated to the congregations through ECT representatives.
As the year came to a close it was decided that the emphasis for ECT for 2008 would be on the youth, the elderly, and the homeless. It happened that Mrs. Hughes was attending the funeral at Sandston Baptist Church. She picked up the church newsletter and became interested in their outreach project which was Operation Inasmuch. Intrigued with the project, she called Troy Westerman, her deceased friend’s grandson, and asked for more information. Troy was invited to speak to ECT and share the experience with them. ECT representatives were encouraged to visit the website: www.operationinasmuch.org. They contemplated for 6 months about sponsoring such an effort and it seemed right in line with their stated emphasis for the year. The Rev. David Crocker, founding pastor of Operation Inasmuch in Fayetteville, North Carolina, came to Tappahannock to lead a workshop on how to implement the program. ECT members served vats of hot soup, sandwiches and homemade cake. When more than 100 people came out on a cold bleak January night to a meeting about a topic new and different it was evident that something big was going to happen. The spirit and momentum was awesome, right from the beginning.
 The program gets its name from the Matthew 25 scripture “inasmuch as you have done it for the least one of these you have done it unto me.” Beginning in Fayetteville, North Carolina, an army town, the term “operation” was obvious. OIAM has been going on in Baptist Churches throughout North Carolina now since the mid-90’s and has spread throughout the United States as well as Canada and England and Japan. Slowly other denominations have begun to take the idea and accomplish it in different ways, usually by one or two churches. (This month, on April 19, there were 990 churches throughout North Carolina carrying on Operation Inasmuch, sponsored by the Baptist State Convention.)
A Planning Team began in February to meet weekly all the way up to the day of the big event. At first ECT representatives received reports and suggestions and carried information back to their churches. Then contacts were designated specifically as communicators about Operation Inasmuch for each church. Social agencies in the area were consulted about needs.
April 26, 2008 arrived. Twenty churches were represented along with 2 church schools, St. Margaret’s Episcopal School for Girls and the7th day Adventist Tappahannock Junior Academy, Boy Scout Troop 304, and the7th-day Adventist Community Services. The Contractor Yard, a local business, supported the effort in a big way, donating many of the materials and lending their building as command Center for the day. In addition many of their employees became committed to the idea and offered their expertise and hard labor on the jobs. Counting the volunteers who contributed time and goods prior to the day there were over 500 participants.
That Saturday hundreds people, all in blue Operation Inasmuch tee-shirts, gathered on the lawn of St. Margaret’s School for an 8:00 AM service to be commissioned to go and serve their neighbors. The sea of blue shirts against the Rappahannock River and the Downing Bridge was a moving scene.
Sixty projects were developed, ranging from roof repair and building wheelchair ramps to giving out quarters at the Laundromat to making bibs, lap robes, and wheelchair bags for nursing home residents. Home-baked cookies were brought in, packaged, and distributed throughout the community. Tappahannock Memorial United Methodist Church was the site for a workshop for making prayer shawls and they were explained and created during the morning. First Baptist church in Tappahannock was the site for a “Free for All” where clothes, household goods, and food were given away. Free health screening and consultation with doctors and nurses was available at that site as well. At St. Margaret’s School toiletry kits for foster children, women entering a nearby shelter, and seasonal farm workers were assembled. Suitcases were collected for Social Services to have something better than a black trash bag to put foster children’s belongings in when they had to be removed from their homes.
Students from St. Margaret’s entertained young children of the volunteers and they put together and delivered some 380 bag lunches during the day. A choir of children and adults sang for residents of two nursing care facilities and then visited individually with them. A lunch party was held for the assisted living group and their staff.
Several houses were painted on the outside. A volunteer returned to replace the porch screen on one the next day and a whole team volunteered to work again the following week-end to get to a project there had not been time for the week before. Rooms inside homes were painted. Steps were built or repaired and handrails were installed. Yards over-run with trash and brush debris were cleaned out and re-seeded.
A large area near the Riverside-Tappahannock hospital Emergency Department was cleared and colorful plants were installed. A new atrium garden was built by the scouts and an interior garden and gazebo in the hospital were cleaned and freshened up with new plantings. The Free Health Clinic received new paint on its walls, and the interior of the Social Services Department was brightened with new paint as well.
The remarkable thing about the day, though, was not the number of projects or the number of volunteers involved. It was the people of all ages and races and Christian denominations working side by side on these projects, and reticence and suspicion were replaced with smiles and hugs. Teams bonded and friendships formed. The youngest participant was 3, the eldest a spry 95 years old. People became aware of the conditions of some of their neighbors. On that day there were no Baptists or Presbyterians or Catholics or Methodists or Pentecostals or Adventists. There were only brothers and sisters living the love of Christ to people they had never met. Church members became sensitive to what had been left undone and were inspired to continue throughout the year.
The brushes have been washed, the hammers put away, and tee-shirts are laundered (what’s left of them!). Of Tappahannock Presbyterian’s 54 members, 27 participated, many of them project leaders. In the near future members are participating in the shower trailer project being headed up by St. Andrews Presbyterian of Kilmarnock.
A tiny church, indeed, with a very big heart.
|
