The CREW

When I walked into xrds, a church in Amstelveen for the first time in the year 2007, I noticed some young folks with a T-shirt  written CREW at their back. They were the most active people in the hall, from lifting heavy benches across the room, preparing coffee, to cleaning up the trash from the bin. They were in their 20’s upto mid 30’s and had a walkie talkie to talk with each other. I admired them as they criss-crossed the rooms and the halls on Sunday mornings, coming in early before the service and leaving home late after the service. The church met at a school which had classes from Monday to Friday and the church rented the classrooms and auditorium for its Sunday worship service. The crew were mostly Bible college students who earned a stipend for helping in the weekends on Saturdays and Sundays to set up the church. Oh, how I loved the sound of the huge bunch of keys hanging from the belt loop of the head custodian.

Slowly there came a desire in me to join the group and do the heavy lifting so much, that I joined them every weekend for 2 years and it was fun. After a work week, I would be on Saturdays in the school, arranging chairs to lifting benches and also to clean the toilets with a pair of gloves on. On Sunday afternoons, post the third service, I was exhausted but I loved doing the same job over and over again. I was determined that God had called me to serve in this capacity so as to enable the congregation to comfortably worship God. The custodians were from different nationalities and we became good friends.

As days went on, during one of the custodian meetings I was gifted the “CREW” T-shirt and oh, how I loved wearing it. One Sunday after the service, there came a lay pastor from the church, whom I knew quite well and he asked me as I was emptying the trash from the bin  - “Israel, are you paid for doing this job ?”

“Of course not”, I replied,

Later thinking through the incident I felt that I would personally pay the church personally for the opportunity to serve on par with the other paid custodians. The discipline and lesson learnt on serving has helped me in my life’s journey to keep serving with joy irrespective of what people may perceive of our actions. The discipline meant also that I was focussed in my prime youth and fighting to lead a holy life which would later help me immensely.

Woe unto me if my service had stopped just because people did not recognise me or were convinced that I was doing monetary gains.

Self denial can seem difficult when the ego is still in control but there is a joy in surrender, surrender to Jesus as he taught to serve unconditionally.

There is a beauty to give a surprise, against the norm that you work hard only when there is some gain, fame or monetary benefits involved.

To aim for joy and not touch the glory. Practice to serve selflessly until it becomes addictive and a habit.

My job of helping with the custodians stopped after 17 June 2010, but I was determined in my mind to help the following Sunday too not thinking about the severity of my injuries. “I need to get out of the hospital in 2 days since I am in rooster to help for the upcoming Sunday” was my first thought and aim as I regained consciousness from my coma on Saturday (mistaking it to be the same day - Thursday)., however the work continues but in a different setting.