Angels of the Arc by Meredith Marturello (Day 3) June 16, 2010

Genesis 1:1 states that God created the heavens and the earth. Although every Christian knows this passage, none of us ever witnessed it.  The greatest miracle known to mankind and we never experienced it.  You might be asking “what does this have anything to do with West Virginia?” Taking second place as the country’s poorest state, it might as well be the last place you would ever think to have any sort of “miracle” happening, but it’s exactly where we found one.

Today we went to the Weaver Church of the Nazarene to help with their construction project.  We all soon figured out it was much more than just building a youth center.  The church started out as nothing, just like the creation of the earth, and in a poor community they really had no resources to start a new projcet.  But God gave these people a vision and all the hope in the world.  Through prayer and worship they planted that vision into the soil of our earth and created something that doesn’t happen in our present day.  They sprouted a miracle.

Stepping into their rec building, called “The Arc,” we all could see that there was a lot to be done.  Knowing that this project was already on their fifth year, to some of us it might have seemed to be a wasted effort.  And through cleaning the place after a previous group had done construction, it seemed as if we didn’t really make much of an impact.  But our leader, Raymond, assured us that every little form of help counts, and we all could se the determination in his eyes.  He told us that we were now a part of this community and we would all be remembered as Angels of the Arc.

So traveling to West Virginia to clean a rec building might come across as somewhat silly, but we truly touched the hearts of the people of the Weaver Church of the Nazarene.  Although the creation of the earth was an unseen miracle, the creation of the Arc was a miracle our youth group will never forget.

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