This photo of the Good Works staff was taken at our Christmas party in December.
December 2024
greetings from the Good Works community!
We write once again with gratitude!
This is our last newsletter to you in 2024. On January 1st, we will start our 45th year!
MANY things can be said about our 44-year history. So many good people have inspired us, supported us, and joined us over these years. So many things have happened in and through our lives since January of 1981 when we started welcoming strangers into the basement of our home. I was 22 years old. I had no idea when I started Good Works that we would still be here 44 years later carrying out the same vision to love and welcome strangers, care for widows at their homes, and welcome vulnerable children. This month we celebrate God’s faithfulness, your love and support, and the good things which have occurred and impacted countless adults and children over many years!
On the wall in the GW Hannah House is a photo of me making a funny face at a child sitting next to me in the early days of Friday Night Life. I think she is about 3 or 4 years old in the photo. Today, that “child” is all grown up with children of her own. Almost every day I see people who once stayed at the GW Timothy House, or who received a vehicle or appliance from the Transformation Station, or someone impacted through Neighbors Helping Neighbors, or the Friday Night Life community. And these days we are seeing people who come to Loads of HOPE (our free laundromat) get connected to the life-giving community of Friday Night Life. And one more thing: This year we have the blessing of the children of our current and former staff working with Good Works. I’m smiling! Thank you for sustaining us, encouraging us and helping us carry out and fulfill our mission.
We have been providing ‘take-home’ food every Friday Night for many years. People who participate in the FNL “step up to the plate” and volunteer to organize the food donated to Good Works for an average of 15-20 families each week.
Friday Night Life is now in year #32. We are a community of HOPE! We meet for 6 months at The Plains UMC and 6 months on the Good Works property.
Friday Night Life Kids Club led by Good Works staff and volunteers, takes place before and after FNL each week.
WE ARE SEEKING small groups of 5 to 10 people to sponsor 1 Friday Night Life dinner in 2025. Each year we pray for 48 different sponsors, and each year almost that many ‘step up to the plate’! Some groups prefer to sponsor while we host FNL inside The Plains UMC (now through April) while other groups sponsor FNL outside from April to October on the Good Works property. We are asking groups to pick a Friday in 2025 and provide food for around 60-70 adults and children. Would you consider organizing a few people?
Friday Night Life 2025
Darlene Wasserman communicates and coordinates with each group which sponsors Friday Night Life. She has done this for many years. She meets each group at 4:00 pm, gives them an orientation and often oversees the dinner often working late to make sure everything is cleaned up.
Work Retreats 2025
WE ARE WELCOMING groups to come alongside us as we serve our neighbors (mostly seniors) this coming spring and summer on Saturdays. We start welcoming groups in March. During the summer we prefer week-long Work Retreat groups who come on Sunday and stay through Saturday. We do have some open weeks for the summer of 2025.
We host around 25 Work Retreat groups a year who join us as we reach out to serve seniors, primarily widows in SE Ohio. Our desire when groups come is two-fold: First, that the group experiences a deeper sense of community with each other and that relationships are strengthened; secondly, that each person experiences the “doable” nature of our ministry that they are inspired to continue or start things in their own community.
Foundations
About once a month our community gathers for a Staff Development Day where we remind one another of important matters which sustain our community. We affirm and encourage one another and spend time in one of the following passages from scripture to grow in our understanding of our ministry and mission. I offer them to you in the hope that you may benefit from some reflection on them: Job 29:1-17, Exodus 33:12-16 , Psalm 127:1, Isaiah 58, Matthew 25:31-46, Luke 4:14-21, John 4:1-26, John 17, Ephesians 4:1-16, and James 1:26-27. Most of these sections from scripture focus on worship, mission, and unity.
IN THE NEWS. . .
DAY IN THE LIFE took place Saturday, December 7th. We had a really good day! I will be sharing more in the next newsletter. Heart-felt thanks to everyone who contributed this year! If you would like to support DITL, please mark your gift DITL. If you would like to read Keith’s introductory speech to the event, it is located on the Updates section of our website.
We had a really good season of Saturday Service this fall, going to the homes of many of our neighbors helping to build ramps, sheds and … we put our 7 gardens “to bed” for the winter. We plan to resume Good Works Gardens in the spring if we have enough volunteers.
Vision of HOPE, our essay on our mission and ministry is now in a booklet form. We can send you a copy if you’d like to have one.
You can expect a receipt for your 2024 giving to Good Works before January 31st, 2025. If you need this sooner, contact us.
LOADS OF HOPE
As many of you already know, we opened our free laundromat in located in the basement of Sign of HOPE last September. Adults and children have been coming every Thursday to do their laundry. I am especially grateful that people that people who are sleeping outside feel comfortable coming! We provide snacks each week to adults and children. We would like to open up another day if we have more volunteers.
What is it like to steward Good Works for 44 years?
Looking back, I see my “every-day” life as revolving not so much around my work, but around my calling. It was January of 1975 when I came home one Sunday night at the age of 16 “glowing”. Looking my mother in the eye, she said to me “what did you take”? I responded with, “nothing Mom. I’ve given my life to Jesus”. I know she thought it was another stage for me. I had been through a lot of “stages” and some were very destructive. I think she rolled her eyes and said under her breath, “wonderful, my son the Jesus freak”. Well, that was 50 years ago next month (– did I say fifty! – ?) and if I am still going through a stage, it is going to be the longest stage I will ever go through. I began to understand what God had called me to do with my life when I responded to the new desires placed in me soon after I began to follow Jesus. These desires were intense. These desires were to be with vulnerable people, to help people, to see them experience hope and healing, and to create innovative ways to see and care for people in their vulnerability. One of my favorite stories from scripture is found in Mark 2:1-5. I am drawn to the idea that a few friends, loving their neighbor with creativity, innovation and risk were moved to do something “out of the box” for their paralyzed friend, which enabled him to experience healing and forgiveness.
And so, beginning with providing a shelter (1981) for people experiencing homelessness years before we had the language of who we were welcoming into our basement… to this year (2024) when we opened Loads of HOPE, our free laundromat, we have been inventing, creating and sustaining different ways for small groups of people to come together to love our neighbors. The mystery for me is how the love of God can truly change a person’s life. Mine. And how the passion to love people, born out of the experience of the love of God, has been sustained over all of these years. Indeed, I think it’s remarkable not so much what has been accomplished -- and it feels like a lot -- but how the love of God is weaved into every aspect of our life together for the display of God’s goodness and glory!
In closing this year, I again want to say THANK YOU. So many of you have given us joy, strength and courage over these 44 years by writing, giving, visiting and praying for and with us. We receive your kindness and encouragement with gratitude. Some of my co-workers are weary, very weary. They are serving on the frontlines of the phone calls, intakes and caregiving with those who stay at The Timothy House. We welcome and need your prayers and words of blessing. In January, we will start year #45. I continue to be amazed at the goodness and faithfulness of God!
