Generosity

By Jack Chui

Just a little progress update with me and the STAY ministry. This weekend I'm preparing for 2 events - a BBQ for the whole church after morning mass and also an Outreach to the Detention Centre to bring people to be friends with the asylum seekers in the afternoon. I've organised both events before and several times so I'm comfortable in getting those done, just that I haven't done them both on the one day before. Timing is such, that these events can't be moved.

The BBQ is the one that concerns me the most because there are a lot of dependencies. I can pretty much run the Outreach by myself, but the BBQ requires more than me to run - I definitely can't do it all by myself. Being the slight control freak that I am, it makes me a little more anxious about whether I can pull it off well because quite a bit is at stake - just the whole morning mass parish missing out on food and taking off without hanging around for fellowship. (ok some hyping up here).

I came into this week leading up to the BBQ with very low expectations. I guess because in my mind, I could count the number of people that I knew would be helping me on one hand and that would not be enough to get things running smoothly. The active cell group we had on Sunday was encouraging but small in number and I also didn't seem to have help from the other STAY leaders as they are out of action this weekend. How would I find enough people to help me with the BBQ?

But God seems come through when I least expect it. I always hoped for God to provide enough but He is doing more than that. Over 10 people have responded to my call and all I expected was for most to just turn up and help serve. But many have offered to provide food, come early and skip mass - all things which I thought I would struggle to get people to volunteer for. I really seem to underestimate at times the level of God's abundant generosity and how much people in STAY would be able to give. God even provided new people to come and help generously at just the right time.

Its coming to a stage where I have enough help and people are still volunteering to give up more than what I expect to give more of their time to help out. Its a nice problem to have as I've had to tell people that its not necessary to go that far though they are committed and so willing to give so much. I think I tend to put people and God in a box - that they can only be expected to do certain things within my definition. My definition needs to change and I'm so glad that the people in STAY are able to help me so.

So my sincere thanks to all that are helping with the BBQ, for the small and big ways. There's still quite some tasks for me to get ready like purchasing the meat and missing utensils but that is something as leader I have to do to lead by example. Please pray for Sunday - the BBQ and the Outreach. Feel free to invite your friends --- Sunday 26th - mass at 10:30am followed by a BBQ and music. God bless.