One Heart Many Hands

One Heart Many Hands was born out of Dr Gary Morsch's passion to serve and give back to the community. The Church of the Nazarene gatthers together every four years for a General Assembly, and since the community of Indianapolis was giving so much to them, they decided it was time to do something to benefit the people of this city.

Our youth group had the opportunity to participate in One Heart Many Hands this year. On Sunday morning, we all made the long drive to Indianapolis and sat down together as a community of Believers. People of all ages and all different kinds of skill levels brought together by one purpose. Plans have been being made for almost two years - where to serve, how to serve, and who will serve.

Our youth group was divided into three teams with three different houses. The house I was assigned to didn't sound like a whole lot of work, but the big tasks took longer than everyone allotted time for. We put up new gutters, which involved putting up wood for the gutters to rest on, and painted all the wood white, new boards were put into the deck, the faucet was fixed inside the house, and new doors were put on the front and the back.

We were also blessed to be working right beside another group of ours, which allowed us to help on both houses when needed. The other house needed a lot of TLC. All the windows were scrubbed and re-caulked, I think there were twelve in all, on the front of the house all the paint was scraped off and then they of course painted it again, there was a fence that was paint-scraped and repainted, and then people were up on the roof doing who knows what to fix it.

This wasn't on our itinerary, but when the other group arrived they realized the basement was just a hole in the ground with no supporting beams. Big problem there! (I mean, I don't really know. I know nothing about fixing houses.) So there were a bunch of guys stuck in the basement all week solving the problem of the sinking floor.

Our plan for the week was very straightforward, but when we got there we found a lot of twists and turns that challenged us in ways we were ready to be challenged. You don't expect to see any "miracles" on a trip where you fix houses, but miracles we saw. It was a week of questioning and a week of blessings,

and God provided.