Rebuilding Together

Rebuilding Together * Metro Chicago is part of a national non-profit program that arranges free home repair for disabled, elderly and low-income individuals on the last Saturday in April. This year, I believe there were approximately 90 homes that several thousand volunteers helped to repair. Each home has a corporate sponsor that provides the necessary funding. We participated with about 20 others from our church and went to Chicago's Englewood neighborhood to work on the home of Rev. Henry and Ollie. Rev. Henry is the pastor of a beautiful church several blocks from their home (see picture below). We enjoyed the time to paint, landscape, spruce up and brush off, but more than that, it provided a wonderful opportunity to meet Rev. Henry, Ollie and their family, to work alongside each other, to rebuild together. It my hope that Rebuilding Together will not just be about one Saturday in which we leave our comfy Northside lives to put some fresh paint on a wall, but that it will be about developing partnerships, forming relationships. And then the real work will begin.