he said. “We sang oldies and goodies from a Mennonite hymnbook and shared faith stories.” One family member shared what
her 11-year-old daughter had told a counselor when asked about what she had lost in the fire. “Nothing,” the girl had said, but was pressed by the counselor, “But you’ve lost everything you had, pictures, cloth- ing, toys. … What do you mean you’ve lost nothing?” And the girl answered, “I have not lost anything because I know God has something more or better for me.” Van Dyke added, “There we sat— with a family that is neither Menno- nite nor Lutheran, but Pentecostal— total strangers around a meal, being reminded that God has something more in store for us.” It was the first project for the
Davidson Nehemiah Project, but not the last. Next up: a new building for the local thrift shop that is shared by all the community’s churches, and whose profits support the local food bank and families who worship or live in the township.
“We don’t want it to end,” Van Dyke told the Mennonite World Review. “We got the chance to think bigger than ourselves, to do more than our normal routine ministries. We’ve learned too much and had too much fun to just stop now.”
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Mission
Builders...Carpenters for Christ Mission
Builders.indd 1 12/10/12 3
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