God's Love In Action

As Christians we are called to demonstrate the love Jesus by humbling ourselves and serving others. We are called to look to the interests of others instead of only our own and count others more significant than ourselves. (Philippians 2:3-4) By obediently answering this call, we can reflect God’s compassion and bring hope to our community.  

Recently, Community Impact volunteers from Restoration Church hosted a Laundry Service Day that provided our community the opportunity to have their laundry washed, dried, and folded at no cost. This also included covering the cost of the machines at the Adel Laundromat, detergent, and new baskets, if needed. 

While Laundry Service Day is indeed a dirty job, there were more than 34 volunteers who engaged with those in our community providing prayer and relief of burdens in addition to washing 40 loads of laundry. Our youngest volunteers, starting at age 4, shared the gospel through coloring Bible verse cards and writing notes of compassion and hope. Even those community members who did not utilize the services could witness the joy in volunteers as they giggled loading and unloading machines, listened to worship music as they folded, and brought light and warmth to a typically lonely chore. 

Each of the 11 people that were served through the laundry service all had different reasons for coming in that day but each left with clean clothing and lighter burdens.  

One of the first women we served had recently experience many unfortunate financial events, including fatal health challenges with her cat. She brought in a carload of laundry—12 loads to be exact. She was visibly hurting and struggling and shared that she had no means to clean the overwhelming amount of laundry that had built up. Without hesitation, volunteers were quickly unloading her car, hugging her, and offering her comfort. High school volunteers delivered her clean laundry and prayed with her at her home. The selflessness of these volunteers and value placed on this woman’s life created meaningful connection that beautifully displayed God’s love in action. 

Serving in our community through different projects, such as Laundry Service Day, fosters opportunities to share the gospel, invites others to know Jesus, and fulfills our calling to make disciples. At Restoration Church, we are focused on Adel and desperately want to see lives restored to God. We start and continue this goal by showing up and doing things that others don’t want to do. We do this through dirty, hard, inconvenient, selfless servantship. We respond to God’s call on our lives to obediently follow him and serve his purpose by living on mission.