Dirty, Uncomfortable, and Awkward Work

Every now and then the church's office will receive a phone call from someone asking for help. This past week it was a call from two sisters with zero connection to the church needing to move their personal belongings out of a deteriorating mobile home and into a storage unit. Short the eighty bucks to cover the cost of the storage unit, and without access to a pick-up truck, they were pretty much desperate. Last week, Pastor Chris preached from James chapter 2:

15Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. 16If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?

Chris pulled eighty bucks out the church's benevolent fund, relinquished the truck from his wife, and recruited my muscle. We met the sisters at a motel they were paying weekly rates until they could find permanent housing. We were supposed to drive over to the their old place of residence separately, but their ride was unavailable. So, the four of us drove the 20 miles together in the truck. The sisters shared openly about spousal abuse, divorces, car accidents, physical handicaps, loss of jobs, car break downs, psychological disorders, and financial ruin. Their collective stories were not overly embellished, but simply a window into their life experiences. The whole experience was completely out of the ordinary for Chris and I. Here we were, two guys that work at a church helping out two chain smoking sisters with bleached-out blond hair and blue eye-liner. We didn't know them and they didn't know us. We were from two completely different walks of life. It was dirty, uncomfortable, and awkward work; yet through it all there was a strong sense that what James was saying was being taken seriously and the church was being the church.