wfn.org | SOOPers provide sweat, smiles to get new building in shape

[BethAH@mbm.org]

March 14, 2001
Beth Hawn
Mennonite Board of Missions
(219) 294-7523
<NEWS@MBM.org>

March 14, 2001

SOOPers provide sweat, smiles to get new building in shape

Grant Rissler is serving through Mennonite Voluntary Service as a
writer and photographer.  After spending a year as intern at the
Mennonite Central Committee United Nations office in Manhattan,
he is traveling for five months by bus to 20 other MVS and
Short-Term Mission sites, gathering the stories and experiences
of other volunteers and communities.  A weekly column by Grant
can be found on the web at www.MBM.org.

AUSTIN, Texas (CHM/MBM) � When Kathy Goering Reid, co-pastor of
Austin Mennonite Church, introduces visitors to Service
Opportunities for Older People volunteers Richard and Margaret
Cook, she calls them Saint Margaret and Saint Richard.

�I couldn�t give you enough superlatives to describe Richard and
Margaret,� Goering Reid said of the retired couple from Maple
Ridge, British Columbia, who for two months worked here,
spearheading the effort to get Austin Mennonite Church�s new home
into better shape. �They�ve just been wonderful to have here.�

The urban congregation of 45-50 members that had rented worship
space since its beginnings in the early 1980s recently purchased
a vacant Presbyterian church in north Austin, but the building
needed a number of improvements, said Goering Reid.  She
described how, with the help of the energetic Cooks, the
congregation was able to do the $30,000 job of putting new
paneling on the outside of the building for only $3,000 using
volunteer labor.

�It�s incredible to see what they�ve been able to do in two
months,� Goering Reid said.  �You notice the big things right
away � the new paint, the paneling � but there are also so many
little things, like the door that doesn�t squeak anymore and the
way they�re always smiling.  We were able to say, these are some
of the things we see, but let us know what else needs to be
done.�

Ironically, the relationship happened almost by accident.
Richard, a retired railroad worker, and Margaret, a mother who
provided a foster home to more than 200 children in 20 years, had
done short-term mission trips to Tijuana, Mexico, in the past,
working with an organization called Soulseekers for Christ.  This
year, they were looking for something different and contacted a
number of organizations.  SOOP was the one that answered
immediately.

Then several options for SOOP, working with death-row inmates in
Alabama, and building with a church in Brownsville, Texas, fell
through because of a lack of other volunteers and a lack of
living space, respectively.  But in December, Sa�l Murcia, a
member of the Austin congregation and an assistant director for
Mennonite Voluntary Service, heard that a couple needed
placement.  Murcia contacted Goering Reid and a housing
arrangement with other members of the Austin congregation fell
into place.

�We had a number of choices [of programs], and it must have been
the Lord because everything else fell through and this worked so
smoothly,� Richard said.  �People at home [in Canada] told us not
to come down here.  They said, �It�s Texas; they�ve got guns.�
But I�ve found them to be super-courteous.  Serving, meeting
people, it�s all part of [SOOP].  A whole new circle of friends
opens up.�

For the congregation, the volunteers have allowed them to get
projects done in a short time that they thought would take
months.  The help allows them to move on to their real mission:
doing outreach in the surrounding multicultural neighborhood.

�Right now, we�re very inward-focused,� Goering Reid said.  �But
this fall can be a wonderful time of looking at things we�ve only
dreamed of doing before, about what it means and takes to do
mission and be a witness in this neighborhood.�

As for the Cooks, they plan to apply for SOOP next winter, this
time in San Antonio.  �This is the first time we�ve done it, and
we like it,� said Richard.  �It�s a broaden-your-horizons kind of
thing.  You�re never too old for that.�

Service Opportunities for Older People is a sponsored by
Mennonite Association of Retired Persons, Mennonite Board of
Missions, and Mennonite Central Committee Canada.

* * *

Grant E. Rissler       PHOTOS AVAILABLE