I received a number of thank-you's from the worksites, and I'm going to share a few of them with you.
"Please know that we are very appreciative of the students who came to St. Mary's Child Center this week. They were extremely helpful with our young 3-5 year old children and even helped us by going on the field trip to the splash park and cleaning around our building.
We are very grateful that you recognize our site as one which fits your criteria for serving those less fortunate and we know that your students were able to see Christ in each child's face and spirit."
-St. Mary's Child Center
"I want to thank you for another opportunity to serve our refugee population. We all had work accomplished, had great time and fun doing it too."
-Refugee Resettlement
"Thank you for including 'A Caring Place' as a host site for your Archdiocesan Homeland Mission Project. We enjoyed having the students participate with our clients. They were able to enjoy some different activities with the students that we normally cannot do because of the number of staff and volunteers needed. Some of the comments from our clients [were]: 'What a great bunch of kids,' 'It is wonderful that they are here,' and 'A well mannered group, I enjoyed talking to them.' I hope the students benefitted as much as our clients and staff did."
-A Caring Place
These are just a few of the letters, e-mails, and phone calls I received from the work sites about how great it was to have all of you there. So much great work was done over that week, and it can be hard to realize the true impact that all of you made. Between our youth participants and young adult and adult team, over 1500 hours of volunteer work was done during those 5 days! Not only did you do the work, but you were also a witness of Christ's love to every person you helped.
As I watched every evening at Mass and prayer, it was clear to me that, though everybody was tired from a long day of volunteer work, you were making the connection between the sacraments, our faith, and the good work you were doing. It truly was an inspiring week and one that I was glad to be a part of.
I pray that it was a great experience for you as well, and that it inspires you to continue to be Christ's hands and feet by bringing His message of comfort and aid to a world that is so desperately in need of it.
If you want to check out some pictures from the week, visit our Facebook page by clicking the link at the top of this blog, by searching for "Arch Indy Youth Ministry" on Facebook, or by following this link: http://tinyurl.com/43zomms.
Thanks again to everybody who was a part of the week and who prayed for its success!
Peace in Christ,
Kris
