Hands of Christ
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
Attributed to Saint Teresa of Avila (1515–1582)
The Bible is pretty clear when it comes to the duty of Christians to help those who need our help.
From the Old Testament prophets through Jesus himself, we are called on to give of our time and our talents and our treasure to those who have so much less than us.
At Good Shepherd, we take service to the least of these our neighbors seriously. We trace our beginnings to the Oxford Movement, which had as one of its priorities Christian service – being The Hands of Christ – and today we maintain a vibrant mission ministry.
Every June, we send youth and adults into the Appalachians for a week of physical and spiritual mission work. Throughout the year, we conduct food drives and fund drives for local, national and international ministries. And we periodically participate in special days of service.
But Jesus’ demand that we tend to the spiritual and corporal needs of our neighbors isn’t limited to our work as a community of Christ. He calls on all of us as individuals to serve the least of these. And Good Shepherd is blessed to be the spiritual home to an abundance of Christians who gladly serve as The Hands of Christ to the world.
On this page, you will find snapshots of some of those people. Keep checking back, because this is a new effort that we’ll be updating monthly.
You’ll also find a list of local ministries that are in need of volunteers, We’ve started with the ministries we have a long relationship with, but there are countless others that are doing God’s work in our community, and could do it better with your help. If you’d like help in selecting a ministry to work with, please contact Deacon Fred Walters.
Finally, if you know people in our parish who serve as The Hands of Christ, we would ask you to let us know, so we can celebrate their ministries. Just email their names, what they do to serve as Christ’s Hands and any other information you think we need to know to Cindi Scoppe at cscoppe@thestate.com
The Hands of Christ through the sheriff’s Project Hope
Barbara Shade was born a stone’s throw from Good Shepherd, just behind the Woodrow Wilson home on Henderson Street. She was baptized at our marble font 90 years ago and grew up as an active parishioner, along with her brother and sister. At age 17, against her mother’s wishes, she married and moved to Ohio, where she raised a daughter (who raised three children, who are raising three children).
When her husband died, Barbara came back home. She still had family here, and Good Shepherd, but she didn’t know many people outside the church. Then one day, she heard about volunteer opportunities on the radio, and she called to inquire.
Before she knew it, she was volunteering with the Richland County Sheriff’s Department. First she helped raise money for purchases the county budget didn’t cover, and scholarships for deputies who wanted to continue their education. Then she found her calling, and for nearly two decades she served as the Hands of Christ through the sheriff’s Project Hope, where she called elderly people regularly to make sure they were doing OK. She also accompanied deputies when they went out to visit her charges. Barbara’s health forced her to scale back a couple of years ago, but even last year she and her neighbors were collecting cans to help pay for vests for the deputies’ dogs.
Although Barbara didn’t have to juggle a regular job with her volunteer work, for much of the time she was serving as the primary caregiver of her brother, Winkie Deaver, who passed away at the end of 2015.
Barbara advises people who want to serve as the Hands of Christ to decide what it is they want to do and then call around to see how they can help. If you’re interested in law enforcement, call your police or sheriff’s office. If you’re interested in education, call your local school to see if volunteers are needed. You can rock babies at the hospital or help with just about anything you can imagine at senior resources. The opportunities, she says, are as endless as the needs.
Barbara is the first little girl on the left in the front row in this 1939 picture of Good Shepherd’s Sunday School Choir.
The Hands of Christ to Hannah House
St. Bridget’s Guild has always been a combination social and service organization, with members getting together regularly for lunch and tours of local attractions and collecting donations for worthy organizations. But under the leadership of Barbara Suszek, St. Bridget’s has sharpened its service focus and become the Hands of Christ to Hannah House.
The Columbia ministry, which has its headquarters just a few blocks from our parish, provides transitional shelter and basic necessities to women, with or without children, who are seeking independence and self-sufficiency.
"Prior to Hannah House we were supporting Children's Garden," Barbara explained. "This is also a wonderful organization, however they ended up with so many supporters, we felt superfluous." So she invited Hannah House’s director to make a presentation to the guild, and it was an easy decision to start helping there.
Although Hannah House is a project of the entire guild, guild members say Barbara’s passion is what has made the partnership so strong.
When the guild needs additional donations, Barbara won’t hesitate to corner a parishioner and ask for help. She also won’t hesitate to load up her car when someone brings in clothes or household goods to donate, and run them over to the shelter. At a minimum, she drops off donations once a month.
The guild keeps Hannah House in a steady supply of 33-gallon trash bags and aluminum foil (and you don’t have to be a guild member to donate; bring them to the parish hall any time, and they’ll get to the right place), and also provides special needs at special times.
That means school supplies in late summer and of course Christmas gifts, personalized for each woman and child at the shelter. When Barbara asked what the women wanted most for Christmas, they told her laundry detergent. The first year, she got the whole parish involved, and was able to collect 57 giant containers.
Barbara and the guild provide a great example of how even those of us who aren’t comfortable taking on service projects on our own can still serve as the Hands of Christ in our community.
The Hands of Christ in Appalachia
Several adults and young people from Good Shepherd serve as The Hands of Christ in an extraordinary way every June: They donate a full week of their year to repairing homes and hearts of the needy in Appalachia.
The participants vary from year to year, and many come back year after year, because they believe they are doing what God has called them to do – using their skills if they have them, their enthusiasm if they don’t, sharing Christ’s love through their presence and companionship – and because they cherish the time they can spend together in Christian fellowship. Every one of them will give you slightly different reasons they participate in the work trip, but they’ll also give you one identical reason: someone asked them to. You don’t have to wait. Become The Hands of Christ.
The Hands of Christ Feeding Children Everywhere
Serving as the Hands of Christ doesn’t mean you have to make a lifelong, or even a yearlong, commitment to a particular ministry. You can serve as Christ’s Hands for a week, as many parishioners do during our annual mission worktrip to Appalachia. Christ is even happy for us to serve as his hands for a single morning, as 40 parishioners did during our Lenten Day of Service.
With the help of 20 old and new friends from the community, participants carefully measured out lentils and rice and dried vegetables and salt, sealed them in bags and packed the bags into boxes to send to starving children in Haiti. By morning’s end, they had packed more than 18,000 meals.
The day of service was made possible by a year’s worth of donations — from those who participated, and from others who didn’t — that produced the $6,900 necessary to pay for the supplies and delivery.
Want another chance to serve as the Hands of Christ for a morning? Put Sept. 22 on your calendar: Feeding Children Everywhere is sponsoring the “Saying Grace Community Hunger Project” at Spring Valley High School, where participants will package 100,000 meals for school backpack programs, pantries and food banks in our community.
The Hands of Christ in our schools
To us, Betty Prudence is a faithful member of the Daughters of the King and the Altar Guild and, of course, our parish secretary. But to children in Richland District 1 who can use a little extra help, she’s a mentor and friend. She’s the sweet lady who comes to their school for an hour every Thursday and reads with them. She is, to them, The Hands of Christ.
Betty first started reading with children five years ago at Bradley Elementary School. She later switched to Reading Matters, which the SC Bishops’ Public Education Initiative began in 2015. This year she is reading with two first-graders at Greenview Elementary School in Lower Richland.
Betty feels not only that her efforts enhance the children’s education, but that having one-on-one conversation time with an adult is very important for all children. Most children don’t get enough of this. Betty figured that since she had the time, she should share it with the children.
Reading with children was a natural for Betty, who was the principal at Meadowfield, W.S. Sandel and Piney Grove elementary schools in Richland 1 before retiring in 2008.
"I gain so much by continuing to help out in my small way,” she said. "I stay connected to my profession, and seeing students grow and develop as learners is satisfying."
Betty says that people who would like to do God’s work in our community but aren’t sure how to get started should follow their interests, their skills and their comfort zone, as there are countless ways to be of service: Just look for a need that you have the talent to meet, she says, whether it’s sitting and talking with a senior or volunteering with Meals on Wheels to deliver meals to participants. "There is some place for everyone," she says.
Betty and her late husband, Richard, started attending Good Shepherd in 1987. Before Good Shepherd they had attended St. Martin’s in-the- Fields Episcopal Church, where they first met the newly ordained Fr Lyon (who was the curate) and Sallie. Richard also met Dean Carmine, who invited them to come to Good Shepherd. They both loved the liturgy here at Good Shepherd and became members, and were happy to welcome Fr Lyon and Sallie back to Columbia in 1991.
You can find more information on Reading Matters at http://bishopseducation.com/getting-plugged- in/. Learn more about other ways to serve as The Hands of Christ at http://www.goodshepherdcolumbia.org/outreach-ministries
Do you know someone else who is reflecting the love of Jesus Christ by serving as His Hands in a world in need? Drop their name in the alms basin, along with what they do, or email cscoppe@thestate.com.
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Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’
Matthew 25:34-40
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If you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.
Isaiah 58:10
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After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord — and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.
John 13:12-14
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He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6:8
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He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
Mark 9:35-37
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Do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.
Zechariah 7:10
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Celebrant: Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
People: I will, with God’s help.
Celebrant: Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
People: I will, with God’s help.
The Baptismal Covenant - Book of Common Prayer, page 305.