Friday, January 4, 2013

Free Will Offering


One of my favorite duties in my job at the Reynolds Homestead, an off-site campus for Virginia Tech, is being the person who recruits and trains the Volunteer Interpreters (Docents) who show visitors around our 1843 plantation home, the birthplace of RJ Reynolds and his many siblings.  Each year, we honor all our volunteers and celebrate those folks who choose to give of themselves.  It made me stop and think about my own history of volunteering, something that has become a lifelong habit.

My mother and grandmother were the first to set me on the course of being a volunteer, usually over my protestations.  Many a Saturday morning, one or the other would fill a tin can full of freshly cut flowers from their gardens, add an Upper Room Daily Devotional booklet, and send me on my way to knock on a shut-in’s door and deliver some ‘sunshine’, as they liked to say.  Of course, I would find myself ushered into a sitting room and encouraged to climb up into an overstuffed chair, complete with doilies.  At this point, here I was -  sipping on a cup of tea or a glass of coke, nibbling on shortbread cookies, and hearing stories from long ago.  I’d leave with a glow and a big smile, though it never stopped me from grouching the next time.  Such is the teaching of a young soul to volunteer.

Through my 4-H club, I learned the importance of looking poverty in the face.  We would deliver holiday baskets, filled to the brim with food and presents, to the ‘poor people’ in our county.  Sometimes these families had children my age and I would ache with embarrassment....until I learned to simply smile and look into the eyes of the girl or boy my age – and wait until they met my own eyes.  I often saw contempt, pride, shame – and a yearning to be more.  But most importantly, I saw myself.....’there but the grace of God’.

Every Halloween, the church youth group would arm themselves with the little orange cartons and knock on doors around town.  “Trick or Treat for UNICEF!”, we’d call out and most folks would scramble around for some coins to drop into our boxes.  I could picture in my mind a starving African child having a drink of milk as the carton filled.  Maybe somewhat naive, but from this I learned that the whole world is our neighbor and we’re called to help - one penny at a time.  And maybe, just maybe, I made a difference.