A New (Wellspring of) Hope

photo courtesy Lisa Lang White

As some of you may have noticed, it’s been a few weeks since I have “suit up” for an event since Motor City Comic Con.  Not that this year’s convention was any more stressful then in past years, just that sometimes you need to just “power down” and take some time to relax and recharge the batteries, as it were.  In my case, my sister and I went down to Walt Disney World for the finale of Star Wars Weekends – I even got picked as the “Rebel Spy” during our last run on Star Tours; a point of pride for us Rebels.  So when mauiview -- who also just got back from Disney -- came to the Great Lakes Base with an event request from a group called Wellspring Community Church of God, inviting us to be part of their annual summer block party… felt like a good way to get back to work.

It was a beautiful summer morning at Oak Knoll Park!  Perfect weather for Wellspring Community Church of God to welcome people from the neighborhood to come together and enjoy some food, fun and games -- but also help provide donated food and clothing to those who may need it.  I used to work with faith-based groups like this all the time, during my tour as an Americorps service volunteer, and what these people manage to do (for others) is truly inspiring.  According to the Wellspring’s pastor, the event drew 250-300 people -- which is a very high turnout for a group like this.

For our part in all this, the mission was simple: just be there and have fun!  At first some of the kids didn’t know who or what we were, other kids recognized us (or maybe our LEGO counterparts, to be exact) right away, then some of them got brave enough to come up to the life-sized action figures and have their parents ask if we’d be willing to take pictures with their kids…

“That’s why I’m here!” (Obi-Wan)

One of my favorite moments of the day came when this one particularly shy kid’s mom asked mauiview for a side-profile picture on her camera.  A little while later, they returned and the kid was wearing one of visor caps from over in the crafts area -- with the image of mauiview’s “Captain Keeli” drawn on the visor, by one of the face-painters.  It looked really good!

Wellspring Community Church of God’s motto is: "Come thirsty, leave fulfilled" and while their summer block party may have been smaller then the typical types of events we volunteer our time with... they also happen to be exactly the type of “break” we need to recharge our batteries for the volunteerism and service aspects of what groups like The Rebel Legion are all about.