Love Where You Live

4 February 2020

Mitchell Evans

There is incredible beauty around us every day if we just take a moment to look up and acknowledge it.

I witnessed one of the many beautiful stories last week involving one of our incredible volunteers. This volunteer noticed we were a little short on people to serve at our Connect Community lunch so gave up their seat at the table to serve others in their community. There was no fanfare, no “look at me” – just a genuine love for their community and this was their response.

Fast forward to later in the afternoon and this volunteer (who still hasn’t eaten because they have been ensuring everyone else has eaten first) notices someone come into the centre looking quite lost and vulnerable. The volunteer offers them a meal and asks if it would be ok if they sat together. Even though they were in a full community space, the attention that this volunteer gave to every word their new friend was saying made it seem like they were the only ones in the room. This newcomer to Streetlevel felt heard, they felt loved, they felt known.

God doesn’t require us to be perfect – He simply asks that we be present where he has called us to be.

This volunteer didn’t need a degree in social work to do this (I’m not discounting further education).

She didn’t need to have this new person’s back story before they connected.

She didn’t need to have all the answers.

She just needed to be present where God had placed her in that moment and respond from a place and a framework of love.