Not too long ago, I was scrolling on TikTok when an interesting video popped up on my For You page. It was a video of a woman calling a church, asking them if they would be able to supply her with some formula for her baby who hadn’t eaten in days. Now, the catch about this video was that she didn’t actually have a baby, and she didn’t actually need formula. No, she was not trying to scam people, but rather she was genuinely interested in seeing if the church would actually help someone in need. They didn’t.
I clicked on her page and saw there was a whole series of these videos. The woman called churches, mosques, Buddhist temples, all asking the same question, “Will you help feed my starving baby?”
She got the same response over and over again to the tune of:
“We have limited funds”
“We are a small church and only help our members”
“We don’t have formula”
“We don’t have time”
Now, not all places said no; there were some places of worship, including a mosque, Catholic churches, a Buddhist temple, and some others that helped her out. One pastor at a small church said they didn’t have any, but he was going to go out and buy some for her and asked for the brand and if there was a specific flavor (which I thought was heartwarming).
Watching all of these videos, the question that is bound to cross anyone’s mind is, “Would my church supply the baby formula?”
I thought about it and immediately decided UMCG would.
The act of buying baby formula says many things: It doesn’t matter who you are. It doesn’t matter if you’re part of this church. It doesn’t matter if you’re religious. It doesn’t matter at all what your situation is. All that matters is that your baby is hungry, and we can supply food. How do I know UMCG would buy baby formula? Because we go on ASP.
ASP, or Appalachia Service Project, for those of you who don’t know, is a service project where a group of people travels down to the Appalachian region for a week to repair homes. Whether it’s building a wheelchair ramp, replacing roofing, or putting up drywall, the week is full of hard work, laughter, PB&Js, and love.
Love is the secret ingredient to ASP, and you can’t deny that. Tell me why I barely want to clean and fix up my own house, but I am willing to travel over 500 miles to repair a house for someone I’ve never met? It’s the same reason we all would buy that woman the baby formula. We are all living in this world together; we are all trying to get through this thing called life, and you can’t do that without the necessities we all deserve – food, water, shelter. ASP directly helps with that last item (and indirectly helps with the first two). By helping repair homes, we not only provide a sense of safety and security, but we also provide hope to people who might have forgotten what that feels like (because most people who apply to ASP have nowhere else to turn). They are down on their luck and need a boost to help out their family and living situation. Over and over in the Bible, Jesus tells us to love our neighbors, and I can’t think of a better way of doing that than packing up 16-passenger vans and meeting them right where they are. That is why we travel. That is why we go year after year.
In just a couple of days, UMCG will depart on our 44th year of making homes warmer, safer, and drier. Our hands will be cutting rebar, holding up underpinning, or securing roofing. Our feet will be busy digging ditches, climbing ladders, or running around playing with kids and animals. Whether we are doing that or picking up formula at a store, we are using our hands and feet exactly as Jesus prescribed. – Maria Isley