We want to let you know about an opportunity to serve the people of Capitol Heights Middle School (CHMS) by simply painting chairs! Alycia Jeong is organizing groups for this Friday, September 5, from 2-5 p.m., and again on Saturday, September 6, from 9 a.m. - 12 p.m. Learn more about why we are doing this project by reading a message from Seth Rhodebeck below.
If you can help, please email Alycia Jeong to let her know you are coming so she can have enough supplies and plan accordingly.
Here is the story about this opportunity:
Several weeks ago at our big serve day, Alycia Jeong was walking the campus and praying. She spent some time in the auditorium. It is a big room that must have been really beautiful at one time. Huge windows, soaring ceiling, original wood floors, a balcony. But, over time, it has deteriorated to a pretty pitiful state.
Every day, students use the auditorium. They wait for school to start in that room. They see the peeling paint, the broken windows, the water intrusion, and the mold. It's hard to impress upon the kids the importance and value of education when they are surrounded by such decay. It's even more difficult to impress upon the kids their value and importance as children made in the image of God. Of course, as junior high kids do, they also contribute to the negative environment. The chairs in the auditorium are covered with crude words, obscene drawings, and the like. It's a depressing place.
As Alycia prayed in the auditorium, she felt compelled to act. She felt compelled to lay her life down, serve others at cost to herself, all compelled by the love of God. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:14-15, "The love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised." That's Alycia; that's all Christians.
Alycia talked to the principal to see if it would be helpful to paint a few rows of the auditorium chairs where the kids sit each day, to cover over the obscene and crude things put there by the kids. The principal is excited to have those chairs painted.
With the school's blessing, Alycia then went to a local paint shop, the John Lee Paint Company, and asked if they would come help her figure out what material she will need to paint the chairs. Clint came over and looked at things, struck by the condition of the auditorium. Not only did Clint give solid advice, but the John Lee Paint Company is going to provide all of the material at no cost! Clint's a Christian and felt the same compulsion that Alycia does.
We have the school's blessing, we have the supply, now we need the workers.
Will you please come help us bring a little bit of beauty to the campus of CHMS? Will you please help us physically embody the love of Christ at CHMS? Will you please follow Alycia, lay your life down, and trust that the Lord will use this small act to bring about his glory?
In the grand scheme of things and in the face of the massive physical needs at CHMS, painting a few chairs might feel like it won't make a dent. But that's worldly thinking, that's short-sighted, that's missing the spiritual truths behind the physical appearance. Come join us, come serve the Lord, and come full of faith that the Lord will work through our meager acts.
These acts of service are the very things that have laid the ground work to allow us to share the gospel with the students of CHMS for the past 15 years. It's important. You are needed. You can help us press into the darkness by showing up. Please, if at all possible, please email Alycia to sign up. Let's go make a difference for the Kingdom of God!
~ Seth Rhodebeck