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In my younger years, some friends and I put together an organization in our college campus called “Big Bird.” (even today I have some from that old fellowship supporting our ministry in at Windermere) Our goal was to serve the community, especially the needy, through service projects and the literal becoming Jesus’ hands and feet. We washed windows, raked leaves, mowed lawns, and pretty much did whatever we could to bless the people living in the community.
One of my overarching goals here at Windermere is to try and replicate the attitude and spiritual temperature from my Bible college. We have a great tradition already present at Windermere by twice a year having a week for Spiritual Emphasis. However in the past we’ve used some of the free time from this week to just allow the children to play games. This year however we’ve tried something different.
I had a two fold approach for allowing the children to work in the community this year. This first is to improve the school’s relations with the community, such that the people in town can see that this Christian school is working to share the love of Christ with the people around us. The second goal was to give the children an opportunity to serve others. Not all the children responded well to this, however I must say that overall the service project blew away my expectations.
Weeks prior to the project I had our student council walking through the town and knocking on all the doors to inquire about any needs our students could meet. This was a “first time” experience for many of them, and they did a great job. In fact our SGA president took a great interest in the service project whereby he understood the exact motivation for which we were working. He helped champion the project and encourage his fellow students to do their very best.
All the staff members kept watch over their classes and 1 by 1 we walked into the settlement and began working.
The next day there were a few houses to finish up, but I thought I’d go easy on the students and only take those who really wanted to go. So I made an announcement I would only take those who wanted to go, and everyone else could stay here at the school. I asked all those who wanted to stay to get up and leave the chapel so that I could speak to all those who wanted to go. No one got up! I looked at our principal, “maybe they misunderstood me.” I make the announcement again, citing the hot sun outside. Still no one got up to leave… everyone wanted to go back out working in the community again.
All in all it was a great service project and I am so proud that the legacy of Big Bird continues to live on in the Bahamas. (one note: the organization Big Bird was my very first entrance to Eleuthera back in 2001, without the participation of that service organization, both Emily and I would find ourselves in a completely different world).