Selfless Service in September!

September 2009 E-update

It started with 3 very full days of moving people into the residence halls Sept. 3-5. We gave away 1,300 baggies of cookies to students as they passed by our table (THANK YOU to all those who made cookies) and we moved in many, many students. Parents and others were surprised to find out that we were volunteering our time to help them move in to the “front four” residence halls on South Green.

“Why would you do that?” “Thank you so much!” “Who would volunteer for this?” These were among the comments I heard as students, staff and volunteers committed over 200 hours to moving people into residence halls. We freely explained that we were serving as an expression of our love for Jesus and to say welcome to Ohio University. It was an honor and a privilege to help.

Throughout this month the students have also been very active in helping with the Athens Church of Christ Community Meals program. They serve, eat with the community folks who come for the meal and they clean up. ROC students have been wonderful examples of service.

Most recently that has been demonstrated as they worked together to construct a cardboard house for the Habitat for Humanity fundraising project, “Cardboard City.”

Unknown to our students, Habitat supplied large pieces of thick cardboard (which our students did use as roofing) and many groups constructed highly decorated houses, castles and other exciting edifices. Not one, however, was made of simple cardboard boxes gathered from area businesses, made to keep the rain out and stay standing all night long. The ROC students, however, constructed such a fortress. Having gathered cardboard boxes from Court St. and other businesses, they spent hours configuring the corrugated containers into a large cabin that housed four of the courageous contractors for the night. Some of the houses built by others toppled but the ROC condo stood firm.

As usual for the beginning of the school year, the approximately 50 undergraduate students that have been getting together for ROC activities this fall have been spending time getting to know each other in Cross Walk, Bible studies, and social activities. But this group of students is also keen to serve others. They have a heart for service and I am encouraged and excited to see them grow in their service. I can’t wait to see what God has planned for October!