It’s National Volunteer Week, and we love our volunteers. We’ve got some great stories to tell about some of our volunteers, about why they serve, and what they love about volunteering.
Today, meet Scotty and Joy.
Scotty and Joy are married, and love volunteering together, and as individuals. Scotty’s a retired mental health support worker, and Joy a retired Nurse and Educator. Among their many areas of service, they coordinate and liase with an organisation called Houses of Hope, who work with and support refugees living in our area, and around Melbourne. Both Scotty and Joy feel strongly compelled in their lives to work for God’s justice in the world, and so they serve in areas where they feel led to that end.
When Scotty and Joy retired, they had much more time on their hands than many of us might. But we can do what they did still: they gave the time that they do have available over to God, and prayed that He would use that. That’s a bold prayer to pray; but they wanted to be used by God for His justice, and he has. God opened doors for them to serve in ways tied to their hearts.
At one stage, Scotty served in an Aboriginal community, and was preparing to hand over a number of tasks he had been doing to an indigenous man to take over. When Scotty showed the man how to manage the bookkeeping tasks, the man was thrilled, exclaiming “Is that all these white-fellas have been doing?!”. Scotty was thrilled to be a part of the change in that man’s life, empowering him to do more.
There’s a big difference that little people can have.
Small acts of service, by many small people, can have a huge impact in other people’s lives. Scotty and Joy both feel that they have been blessed by God in so many ways; but that means they are to become a blessing to others. They love to contribute to those less fortunate than themselves, and to learn the stories of those people.
Scotty and Joy lean heavily on the words of Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians. Paul says that we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. So Scotty and Joy seek to honour God, by completing the good works God has prepared them to do.