Folk Show for the Hungry

Day 17: Folk Show for the Hungry

By Laura Carpenter

Thanks to the lovely ladies from SkyanI (pronounced Sky and I) for helping make this AoK happen! For a few weeks we were wondering if AoK #17 would ever be. Kaler had been calling and chasing down bands for quite some time, but to no avail. It was the Saturday night before St. Patty's Day and around here that means many young adults and musicians have plans to engage in some kind of revelry. Finally, SkyanI accepted our invitation to play at The Redemption Movement and the event was on! Since we were unable to get any other bands on the bill, I seized the opportunity to subject the audience to a few songs of my own. Admission was $5 or a bag of non-perishable food items and all proceeds were donated to The Lord's Table, a free meal service provided daily by St. James Episcopal Church.

I accomplished a personal victory while doing this AoK. I wrote a song ten years ago called Short Skirt (a satirical song about immodesty). The guitar line has a lot of finger picking in it, which I am not accustomed to doing in public. I get nervous when performing and it results in some shaky hands.  I discovered this problem back in junior high. At that time, I had been practicing the song Fur Elise for months and had it down. I especially loved playing the runs at the end. However, the night of a piano recital, it all broke down. I was nervous and my hands were shaky. The song had been going just fine, but when I got to the runs I lost all control and dexterity. My hands felt like fingerless nubs. I botched the runs. I started them a second time and botched it again. I knew I could play them, so I tried a third time to play the notes and my fingers were simply not responding. My mind went completely blank and I didn't know where to pick up again with the song. So, I put my hands in my lap, let out a sigh of defeat and exited the stage. Later that night I felt powerless to control my nerves and wondered if I would ever be able to perform music ever again.

I took up trombone in high school. Trombone requires no dexterity because it's a slide instrument and I did well with it. I had forgotten about my performance jitters, but while studying music in college the problem returned. 

In college, I was required to perform vocal solos and piano solos in front of a judge of professors. I remember just laughing at myself as I played piano at an adjudication feeling that my hands had virtually been disconnected from my brain.  They limped along as I played a song I could play note for note when alone in a practice room. I remember singing vocal solos in rehearsal with my voice teacher exclaiming, “Laura, that was so good I got shivers up my spine!”, but in performance I could barely squeak out the high notes because my throat and chest tightened up. I looked at my teacher in the audience and the expression on her face was shock and bewilderment.

All of this goes to say that ten years ago I wrote a song that I wanted to perform for others, but felt I would be unable to do so, due to nerves. I literally had visions of being on stage trying to play it, but my fingers turning to useless stubble and me having to exit stage in defeat.

 Last Saturday night I faced that fear head on. After some practice and a calming Kava tea, I played my song for a small group of strangers for the first time. I was able to play it through completely and my fingers didn't miss a note! Even though the audience was small, it was a big personal victory for me. I love writing songs and I desperately want to be able to play them for others. Fear tries to keep my musical passion under lock and key, but with God's help, and a husband who keeps pushing me into scary situations, I am slowly but surely breaking free from fear.

 SkyanI then took the stage. They are an indie-folk band composed of three young ladies.  The three of them sing harmoniously while one of them also accompanies on an acoustic guitar.  Since there were no other bands, they were free to treat us to just about every song they knew. They covered a wide range of songs such as Gigantic by the Pixies, Mr. Saxobeat by Alexandra Stan, and Animal Tracks by Mountain Man. SkyanI also played several well written originals.



Their voices and harmonies blended beautifully and their melodies were enchanting. Kalil's guitar strumming resonated gently through the room. We thank them for sharing their songs and their time with us and look forward to having them back again. Thanks to their participation we were able to follow through with AoK #17 and collect some money and food for The Lord's Table.

Day 15: Bathroom Cleaning #2 - 30 Days of Kindness

Day 15 of 30 Days of Kindness was Bathroom Cleaning #2, and for this act of kindness we got down low to exalt He who reigns on high!

Originally, we were scheduled for a door-to-door light bulb giveaway, but with the weather being in the 20s with snow and 30mph winds, even a warm public bathroom was preferable to being outside. For us, visiting Oneonta businesses and cleaning their bathrooms as an act of kindness is an easy and inexpensive activity to do. It sounds weird, but this is one of our favorite AoKs. Cleaning the restrooms of businesses was the first AoK that our church performed for our community, and it was what we did on Day #1 of this 30 Days of Kindness campaign.

Laura and I have cleaning public restrooms down to a routine. We have a designated bucket of supplies ready to go, and we make a great cleaning team. I roll up my sleeves and hit the toilets and Laura cleans the sinks and mirrors. We again went to Oneonta's downtown to visit the businesses that we missed on round 1, as a bonus, a strip of businesses lined up next to each other meant less walking outside in the cold.

The first place we cleaned was one of our favorite coffee shops Capresso Coffee Bar. We have visited here many times as customers, but this was our first visit to Capresso as cleaners. Being a Thursday evening, it was not too busy, which gave us a good opportunity to get to know the clerk. He is a young Jamaican man named Klasic, who seemed a little confused by our gesture. It took a little convincing to let us clean the bathroom, but he eventually gave us the go ahead.

Laura and I made the bathroom sparkle, and when we came out Klasic greeted us with free hot beverages. We insisted that this AoK was a free service, but he was intent on rewarding our efforts with premium hot beverages. As we sipped our beverages, I got to talk to Klasic about Jamaican ska music (a passion of mine) and I invited him to an upcoming a ska show that we are having.

Klasic seemed touched by our cleaning efforts, but at the same time he admitted that his first thought was that it was a little weird (I can't argue with that). That gave me an opportunity to explain our motives, how Jesus did not come to be served, but to serve, and how we believe this means Christians are to be servants to our community. Klasic asked us, "Are you doing this for Lent." We answered no, but at the same time, this is very much like Lent for us. I can definitely see this being an annual Lent-like tradition for our church, except instead of sacrificing for a season, we give.

It was encouraging to share the Gospel with our new friend, we told him that we would be back to wash his windows next week. We then stopped at Sal's Pizza. They let us clean, but business picked up and they got too busy to talk with us. As a rule, we try and pick businesses that are not busy for bathroom cleaning, this will give us time to talk with workers.

We next went to Pyramid Liqueur Store, this was an interesting stop because we cleaned their bathroom almost 3 years ago, and to our delight the same clerk was working and he remembered us. We knew where to go and gave that bathroom the Redemption Movement treatment. Bill was the guy working that night, and we got to chat with him for 10-15 minutes about church and his new puppy that he had with him.

Our last stop was The Bearded Dragon, Oneonta's best comic book and game store. Gaming is a subculture that I have been getting more into over the past few years. I have found myself more interested in board games and less into video games (so much so that I want to incorporate games into our Friday night meetings), therefore a stop in The Bearded Dragon is always enjoyable for me.

Here we met Will, a 21 year old young man from Oneonta who goes to school in Binghamton. He wears a cross around his neck and we could tell that he understood what our mission was about. He pointed us towards the bathroom, which was in a corner of a room full of gamers battling wits. We definitely stood out as we maneuvered our way around tables carrying buckets of cleaning supplies, and it was great to explain our AoK the gamers that were curious.

After we were finished cleaning, we hung back and talked to Will. He was appreciative of our efforts and gave us lots of insight into how to minister to Oneonta culture, like confirming to us how burnt out local people are from door-to-door evangelist. We had a great talk with our new friend about church and gaming, and I look forward to inviting him to game nights at our church and schooling him in Dominion.

Cleaning four bathrooms led to Laura and I making three new friends. As much as we both value relationships, these new friendships are totally worth a few minutes of scrubbing toilets. 15 days into 30 Days of Kindness and we have served a few hundred residents of Oneonta and made dozens of new friends. 15 more days to go and we can't wait to see who else God will place before us!

Day 14: Entertain Assisted Living Home - 30 Days of Kindness

Day 14 of 30 Days of Kindness was Entertain Assisted Living Home, and for this act of kindness our accordion playing friend Chris Lynk really got the people moving!

A blog article describing this outreach written by Oneonta's own accordion guy will be coming soon!

Day 13: Battery Giveaway - 30 Days of Kindness

Day 13 of 30 Days of Kindness was Battery Giveaway, and for this act of kindness the experience was both positive and negative (battery joke).

We have done several giveaways with our previous acts of kindness, but this was our first door-to-door giveaway. The idea here was to visit people’s home and give them a small free gift that they would find useful, and it seems like everybody uses batteries.

I loaded up a basket full of 4 different types of batteries and ventured into new territory for The Redemption Movement, Oneonta’s Center City. This neighborhood is Oneonta’s most high profile neighborhood because it lies directly between the downtown and the two colleges. It has some of the cities biggest, oldest, and most well kept homes, sitting alongside other big old houses that have been divided up into student apartments. Oneonta’s Center City is truly a neighborhood of diverse residents which is one aspect about Oneonta that drew Lauraand I to it.

Laura had to work, which meant that I was flying solo for this one. This was probably for the best since it was cold and raining. With an umbrella in one hand and a basket of batteries in the other, I set out. In the first hour I was actually met with a lot of rejection. Not so much the mean kind of rejection, but more like the kind where people tell me, “We already have enough batteries,” and then quickly shut their door.

My approach was not overbearing, I simply stated, “Hi. My name is Kaler. I am from The Redemption Movement and I am going door-to-door giving away free batteries as an act of kindness to show God’s love.” I would then hold up the basket and offer them free batteries with a smile. I was a little confused at the lack of response; could it really be every home owner is sitting on a giant stockpile of batteries?

My confusion was compounded when I had a police officer stop me because of a complaint. Seriously. Knowing the ridiculousness of the situation, I answered every one of the officer’s questions with a big smile on my face, I even offered him some batteries. I was more than happy to tell him about everything that I was doing and how much God cares for him, at least someone was willing to listen to me.

After the officer processed my identification and everything checked out, he then reported to the dispatcher in his walkie-talkie, “It’s just a guy spreading happiness and kindness, over.” He let me go and I went on my way. Why I was reported didn’t make sense to me at the time, but it did after I talked to Will from The Breaded Dragon on Thursday. Will is a 20 year old clerk at Oneonta’s favorite comic book store, after cleaning his bathroom as an AoK, Will told me how nice it is that we do this and how tired everybody in Oneonta is of religious people going door-to-door. This would explain why few people would even take the time to hear me out.

I have had religious groups visit my door carrying Bibles and passing out religious tracks. In Oneonta, when the weather is nice, especially in the summer, it seems like I see lots of teams of religious folks going door-to-door wearing suites and dresses and carrying Bibles. Everybody I talk to is sick of this approach. Herein lies the beauty this acts of kindness battery giveaway; people come to the door guarded and expecting a sermon, only to receive a free gift along with a smile and a brief statement declaring God’s love. I think if Oneonta’s home owners were not entirely burnt out from our resident door-to-door religious groups on a mission to convert, then they would be more receptive to my message. Regardless, it is my mission to reach these burnt out people and show them love in the face of suspicion, because in the end, “God is love, and love conquers all!” 

After experiencing some rejection during the first part of my mission, I realized that I needed to change my approach with door-to-door giveaways. Many home owners in this neighborhood told me, “Go give it to someone who needs it.” So I did. I headed away from the streets full of large well kept homes and into the northern part of the neighborhood where there are smaller homes and apartments.

Here I received the welcome I thought I would. People were engaging, appreciative, and they took the batteries while asking me questions about the church. I passed out kindness cards and calendars and considerably lightened my heavy basket of batteries (I did feel this AoK in my arms the next day).

I met one college-aged girl who has a heart for ministry and is going to spend her summer in Arizona helping with a church plant, she promised to pray for me. I met another girl who was a part of SUNY Oneonta’s Music Industry Club. She has heard about us from the shows that we host, and told me that she was the one that added our shows to the local newspaper events calendar, and she wants to bring disabled students that she works with to our future shows.

Being a an opportunist, I also passed out calendars to people who had children and told them about our March 22 Parent's Night Out; and if they had a dog barking at me, then I was sure to mention our March 21st dog walking service. After working mainly on the building for the past few years, it feels so nice to have events on a calendar to meet different people's needs that I can tell them about, as well as having a weekly public service that I can finally invite people to.

By the end of the night the rain had stopped, my basket of batteries was much lighter, and I got to tell 20+ people about God's love. All-in-all, meeting new people was a great way to spend an evening. We are now 13 days into this project and I am blown away with how many new people that we have got to meet and proclaim the love of God to.

Day 12: Garden Seed Giveaway - 30 Days of Kindness

Garden Seed Giveaway was Day 12 of 30 Days of Kindness, and for this act of kindness we literally sowed seeds of faith looking for good soil and receiving hearts in our Oneonta community.

In upstate NY, it may still be too early to plant your garden, but with the days getting longer and the snow melting quicker, Spring is on everyone's mind. To encourage people to focus on the warm weather, we thought it would be a nice gesture to pass out free packs of garden seeds.

We were able to setup on a downtown sidewalk in front of a newly remodeled mini shopping mall at Ford & Main. Thanks to a pleasant free gift wrapping acts of kindness at the same location last December, the owner of the property was happy to have us back to set up once again at his location. It was also nice to visit with the store owners on the property and watch the hustle and the bustle of city hall just accross the street. 

 

After a morning of seed shopping, Laura headed to downtown at 12 o’clock in order to reach the lunch crowd and catch the warm part of the day. By 12:30, she was setup and giving away seeds and Kaler joined in on the outreach during his lunch break. There was a lot of traffic, the sun was out, and the location was perfect!

We were impressed with the amount of young men and women interested in gardening. Some of them seemed like pretty hardcore organic types complete with dreadlocks and piercings. One girl beautifully clad in, I’m assuming, homemade knit accessories, explained to us the seriousness of politics making it difficult for small farmers to sell their produce and stay financially afloat. Another young lady was inspired by our 30 Days of Kindness and took a calendar to pass on to her yoga class. She wanted to spread the kindness and lead her class with some of our AoK projects. One young man drove by, saw the sign, yelled thank you to us out of his car window, then called his buddy telling him to stop by to get some free seeds

All-in-all, the seed giveaway was a hit. About twenty people of all ages received a packet of seeds with a kindness card and message of God’s love. We almost gave away every packet. In addition to this, we met one young man who is interested in helping and attending our church and we hope to see him again soon!

We met some nice hippies. We met people serious about visiting our church. We met families with children. We met one religious guy who did not like the idea of a new church in Oneonta and wasn't afraid to tell us, followed by another religious person who donated $40 for us to keep up the good work (which more than enough to cover the giveaway!). Every time we do an act of kindness, we never know who we are going to meet, which makes it an adventure! AoK = Adventures of Kindness!  

Check out our 30 Days of Kindness calendar and contact us to join us our next kindness adventure.

Day 11: Free Haircuts - 30 Days of Kindness

Free Hair Cuts was Day 11 of 30 Days of Kindness, and for this act of kindness we got to turn the ol' storefront into a barbershop!  

It was a beautiful March day, and it was one of the first time in many months we saw the sun, felt its warmth, and opened our windows. We don’t get too many sunny days in Oneonta, therefore, whenever the sun comes out, it seems like everyone is out and about. Joggers, walkers, bikers, and dog owners streamed across the sidewalk in front of our building. The smell of neighborhood bar-b-que was in the air. We were setup with the doors open, letting the sun and air come inside where our friend Max was volunteering his barber skills.

There was a steady stream of customers during our three hours of offering free haircuts. Max did a great job and everyone looked fantastic after a trim. We had a few older gentlemen and there were several children. One family of five hit the breaks when they saw our “Free Haircuts” sign by the road. The mother told us she saw the sign and thought, “Oh, we have to do this!” It was great to help a family where buying everyone a haircut means spending an easy $100. It was nice to bless this family, and it was also great telling them about our upcoming Parent's Night Out where we babysit and the parents get a free dinner at Joe Ruffino's (you can tell by the look on their face that it has been awhile since their last date night). 

 
It was a treat to play with the kids as they waited, and it was encouraging to see the old building come alive with families and children. Kaler, who is keenly aware of a child’s need to play, rummaged through our stuff and found a somewhat deflated ball and some chalk. (We’re going to have to stock up on better supplies for kids.) The beautiful thing about kids is that, even though our toys were not so hot, they still had a blast. They smiled, laughed, and jumped around, enjoying every moment. They tossed a ball around, climbed the poles under our awning, and made chalk drawings on the sidewalk.

 It was a good day for socializing. Several friends stopped by to visit. We got to meet a local pastor’s wife who dropped in to see what was going on. Little did we know that she and her husband were living in the neighborhood all this time. We love doing these events as an excuse to finally meet the people in our neighborhood. Our church is in a high density neighborhood and I often long to get to know the people beyond our door step.

Thanks again to our friend Max and his family for participating in this AoK with us. We couldn’t have done it without them, and if we had, then we would have had to cut hair, and there would be a lot of people around town with bad haircuts!

 Feel free to contact us if you wish to participate in any more of our upcoming acts of kindness!

Day 10: Free Oil Change - 30 Days of Kindness

Free Oil Change was Day 10 of 30 Days of Kindness, and for this act of kindness we got together with friends, looked under some hoods, kicked some tires, and worked with wrenches on a sunny March day. It was good day to change some oil.

This was an event that I really looked forward to, it was our most expensive 30 Days of Kindness project that I had planned. This was not my first oil change rodeo, I interned at a church in Missouri that hosted a free oil change for single moms, I remember seeing a lot people blessed by that event and I wanted to bring this to Oneonta and bless not just single moms, but everybody in the community!

My expectations were high. Who wouldn't want a free oil change? I had 2 cases of oil and dozen 5qt. jugs ready to go. I also had a table full of tools and our meeting room cleaned up and loaded with snacks. The kindness calendar was mentioned in the newspaper, advertised on Facebook, flyers were hung up in storefronts, signs were made and displayed, and I even passed out over 100 calendars, being sure to point out the big oil change event. Expecting there to be a line of cars, I even put extra time into recruiting volunteers and had 8 helpers standing by--not bad for a church of 4 people!

We had 2 cars show up to take advantage of the Free Oil Change. Yep, two. I don't get it. It's a need that is relevant to every driver, and it will cost a person at least $35 to have their oil changed at the shop. Part of me thinks that if I sat out front all day with a sign that said "Free $20 Bill." I would maybe have 2 people take me up on my offer.

Perhaps this act of kindness was too big, too generous, and such a foreign idea to Northeasterners that nobody thought that our offer was serious. I should not be surprised by this, after all, people turn down the free gift of God's big love everyday. Now granted, a generous oil change is not on the same level as God's gift of salvation, but I did notice one similarity, and that is, when I invited people to the Free Oil Change, I had many people straight up tell me, "I would feel too guilty to accept that."

How many people miss out on God's love simply because they don't feel like they deserve it? Meanwhile, God is pursuing after lost souls with the tenacity of a good shepard searching for his lost sheep, or a poor widow turning her house upside down looking for her lost coin. I was pretty close myself to dressing up in a costume and dancing around with a sign to get people to pull in, that is how badly I wanted to share God's love with this outreach.

I may not fully understand why more people didn't show up, but we gained some valuable insight into reaching out to our local community, and you can bet that we will try it again, except, for this next time we will buy less oil. I don't believe the event was a failure, I got to return the extra oil and use the extra food for the Free Haircut outreach that we had the next day, and we were still able to bless several people.

The biggest blessing came from our team of volunteers. A few of the helpers pulled up their own cars and we changed each others oil. There was one young adult helper who had never changed his own oil before, the men helping were quick to teach him this life skill and walk him through the steps as he changed his own oil for the first time in his own car, all while his girlfriend visiting from out-of-town proudly watched.

I also got to change the oil for a neighbor who lives a couple of houses down. This is someone that I have seen walk by my house for 3 years but I've been unable to have a descent conversation with until now. And there was another neighbor who blessed me by using his snow blower to clear the snow off my driveway while I was getting set up. Everybody that volunteered seemed to enjoy themselves, and there is a valuable male bonding experience that happens when you get enough dudes holding wrenches.
 
We still have 20 acts of kindness left to go, and if I could get on a megaphone and say anything to Oneonta NY, my message would be, "Oneonta, we are doing this for you! This is a free gift. We love you. God loves you. You deserve these gifts! Don't believe any lie that would try and convince you otherwise."

Day 9: Free Studio Photos - 30 Days of Kindness

Free Studio Photos was Day 9 of 30 Days of Kindness, and for this act of kindness everybody was all smiles : ) This event was special because it was sponsored by my boss Chris Chase and his family from Directive, and it is a great example of how much good can be done when an employer takes an interest in their employees and is supportive of their life goals.

Being a bi-vocational church planter is difficult. It seems like there is never enough time for the church and outside jobs can be draining. Last September, my bi-vocational task became much easier when I landed a new job as a content writer for Directive; which, interestingly enough, could be traced back to a connection I made doing an AoK last Spring. I went from working for managers who barely knew me, to having my first office job, and working for a family that loves to be supportive of their employees.

When my boss told me that he wanted to help with the church, I was quick to find an AoK project that he would be good at. Chris is an amazing photographer, he loves taking pictures, loves to be generous, and has invested in professional equipment. I floated him the idea of running a free photo shoot for the community, and he instantly said yes. I was thinking that he would drop by our building and snap a few photos, but he did me one better. Chris opened up his downtown photography studio to be used for the event, and he used his business connections to arrange for The Village Printer to donate one free print for each participant! 

This was an exciting opportunity for me and the church, because as much as I enjoy having a place on River St., it has been on my heart since the day I first envisioned church planting, to do ministry in an active downtown. Oneonta has a lively downtown that is packed full of college students, local townsfolk, and people from all around the tri-county area every weekend. One day, I believe that our church will expand to Oneonta's downtown, and the success from this event made me look forward to this goal with even greater anticipation.

In all, we had roughly 25 people get their pictures taken, and 20 of them were people that I had never met before. The way we had it set up was conducive to great conversation. While one person was in the studio getting their picture taken, I got to wait in the lobby with people in line and discuss God's love and our church. This made for some delightful discussions!

Many of the participants had a hard time believing that it was free and kept asking, "What's the catch?" This is my favorite time to tell people, "No catch. We are doing this for free to show God's love." There was a female in a group of students that made the comment, "I thought altruism was a myth!" And there as a male student in the same group that kept asking me if this event was part of a social experiment for a masters paper, I assured him that it wasn't, which took a fair amount of convincing. In my opinion, I think it is sad when a receiver of a kind act would think "social experiment," before thinking "church."  I think this goes to show how the American church might be out of touch with culture and need to step it up in the outreach department.

There was one man out walking his dog that got his picture taken with his dog. He informed me that he and his wife were looking for a new church. There was several groups of students that pulled in for silly group shots, a few even came back with more friends. There was also a young group visiting from California, they were students at the Oneonta Jobs Corps who had their photos taken to be sent back home to their families. All of these people I got to sit with them and share the vision for the church, give them a kindness card and a 30 Days of Kindness calendar, and tell them that we are doing this to show God's love.

Click Here to See the Photo Album!   

Feel free to contact us if you wish to participate in any more of our upcoming acts of kindness!

Day 8: Shovel Sidewalks - 30 Days of Kindness

Day 8 of 30 Days of Kindness is an example of how sometimes plans don't work out, and then God provides new opportunities right out of the sky. Sometimes doing an act of kindness is a big event with a lot of work and planning. Other times, doing an AoK is as easy as taking a walk around your block.

Originally, Day #8, was going to require a team of volunteers and fixing up something for the veterans at the Oneonta American Legion. Communication was a little rough and the veterans outreach didn't work out. As an alternative, Laura and I were going to do our go-to AoK and clean bathrooms for businesses, but Laura had to work late and it's weird showing up to clean past 8pm. At the end of the day, I thought we would have to call it a day and only complete 29/30 Days of Kindness, then it started to snow.

When we woke up, there was 5+ inches of snow on the ground, which is a bit of a surprise for March. I saw the snow as an opportunity to achieve kindness #8. I got out of bed earlier than normal, bundled up, and went outside with my snow shovel, ready to clean some sidewalks and bless my 6th Ward neighbors.

Oneonta during the morning after a snowstorm is a sight to behold. There's a city ordinance saying everybody has to have their sidewalk cleaned by 9am or else face a fine. Therefore, from 6-9am, every home owner is out shoveling their property before they go to work, which makes for a great opportunity to lend a helping hand and build relationships with  the neighbors.

Originally, I had a grand vision to shovel all of Gilbert St. in one hour, but when I went outside, I was surprised to find that most of the sidewalks were already hit before 7am by the neighbors owning snow blowers. It seems like whoever owns a snow blower will go ahead and hit their whole block, my own sidewalk included. It's nice to live in such a generous neighborhood, and I was still able find a few houses that needed a good shoveling.

There was one house where I cleared the sidewalk and left a kindness card and a note on the front door. For all the other properties I shoveled, I was able to spot a neighbor in the act of clearing their driveway and saddle up beside them with my shovel to help get the job done. In the few minutes of giving them a helping hand, I was able to talk to each person about the church, give a kindness card, and explain what our acts of kindness projects are all about.

I got tell a mom about the upcoming events we have for children. I was able to help a middle school student finish off the driveway and tell her about our church. I was even surprised to shovel the sidewalk for one woman who had actually heard about our new church!

While shoveling walkways was not the most high-impact act of kindness that we could have planned for, the point here is that you can still make an impact even without planning. Sometimes, all it takes is a willingness to serve and God will present you with an opportunity to tell five new people about His love.

Feel free to contact us if you wish to participate in any more of our planned upcoming acts of kindness. Or tell us in the comments your own story about an unplanned act of kindness that you took advantage of to bless others!

Day 7: Hot Dog Giveaway - 30 Days of Kindness

Hot Dog Giveaway was Day 7 of 30 Days of Kindness, and for this act of kindness Laura did the work. In fact, as we planned our 30 events, she came up with this event because hot dogs are one of her favorite foods, and as we both found out, everybody else also loves hot dogs. Here is a kindness report from Laura:

Having developed a love for what I consider the perfect hot dog meal, this outreach had to be done according to my own standards for coney consumption which follows these 4 hot dog guidelines:

The hot dog must be of a decent quality.

As a penny pincher, I have found that buying bottom priced hot dogs isn't really worth it. Buying tasty hot dogs is a time when it's better to let loose of those pennies. Today, I went with good ol' reliable Oscar Mayer Wiener, although not the most expensive, OMW is also not the cheapest.

The hot dog must be prepared well. 

How many times have we all gone to a convenience store and been grossed out after seeing burnt hot dogs that have been basking on rollers for hours? There is also the common homemade blunder of overheating a hot dog in the microwave. The result is a gruesome scene, like a heart patient opened up on the operating table, with a rubbery texture to boot. I cautiously coddled these dogs in a hot bath of boiled water, saving them from the fate of the microwave.

The hot dogs should be hot. 

Once the dogs were cooked, I wrapped them in pairs in aluminum foil to retain heat. I planned to do this last to keep them out of the cold as much as possible. I wanted to not giveaway cold dogs.

There must be a certain combination of sides, beverage and condiments. 

My favorite hot dog combo is two dogs, with ketchup, mustard, and dill relish, a cola, and original chips. This essentially was the contents of each bagged lunch that we gave away. As I prepared the lunches, I couldn't help but think how easy it would be to run a hot dog stand and how impressively Heinz engineered their dip and squeeze ketchup packages.
 

Rather than standing on the side of the road, or in front of our building peddling hotdogs, Kaler thought it would be best to call businesses, offer the lunches, and make free deliveries. I called several Oneonta businesses and Kaler asked around; eventually, we found 18 hungry people eager for a free lunch. After a morning of buying groceries, icing sodas, boiling dogs, and bagging lunches, I then hit the road.

I delivered free lunches to several of Kaler's co-workers at Directive, as well as most of the crew from The Village Printer (these two companies are volunteering their time and resources for our March 8 Free Studio Photos event), and the sales associates at Music Square. Inside each lunch bag was our kindness card telling of our church mission, our contact information, and a message of God's love.

Laura with the happy team from The Village Printer

It is our hope and prayer that through ministries like this, doors will be opened for us to talk with others about Christ. Acts of kindness are positive, giving, inviting, and they help us establish trust within our Oneonta community. This is an essential first step to building a trusted relationship with our town.

We want to invite people into our church and into a dialogue about God, and sometimes, it takes a dog to bring up God. Contact us if you want to help out and spread kindness!

Day 6: Shopping Bag Giveaway - 30 Days of Kindness

Shopping Bag Giveaway was Day 6 of 30 Days of Kindness, and for this act of kindness I hit my first roadblock and was shut down by store management. After I was told to stop I did, and I remained respectful and did not argue with them. I see where they are coming from, they are bound by policy and just doing their jobs to enforce it, nevertheless, it is still disappointing.

The idea with The Shopping Bag Giveaway was to go to a grocery store (one that shall not be named), purchase reusable shopping bags, and then give the bags away to customers waiting in line along with a kindness card and a brief statement about God's love (a, message that is more watered down than some of the greeting cards sold in the checkout line).

I was accused of soliciting. I had to refrain myself from arguing the definition of the word solicit, which is: to ask something of someone. Technically, I was not asking asking anybody for anything. This was a giveaway. I experienced no ill feelings from the customers. In fact, here was my approach. If I saw a customer in line that looked like they could benefit from this giveaway, I then approached them and asked, "Excuse me. Would you like a free reusable shopping bag?" Every customer took me up on the offer with a smile and a "thank you" and I ended up giving away 15 reusable shopping bags (and getting stuck with 9). After the customer took the bag, I then passed out a kindness card and proceeded with my controversial message and said, "This is an act of kindness my church is doing to show God's love."

Even though I was not technically soliciting, and my message was far from controversial, I was however confusing the customers. Apparently one reason that I was shut down was because one customer interpreted my offer of "a free grocery bag" as a literal bag of free groceries. After I moved on to the next checkout line, this customer then proceeded to fill his free shopping bag with groceries and tried to use the kindness card as a voucher to pay for it. Only in America.

Perhaps I should have asked permission, but I  knew the store would say no. This was the same store that would not even grant me an audience to listen to my idea about providing customers with free gift wrapping last December. Apparently, this store has become so PC that they have enacted a nationwide policy removing all community groups from doing any activities on their property, with the exception of the The Salvation Army during the holidays; and judging by the Facebook post I read every holiday season from my PC friends encouraging people to "boycott giving to the Salvation Army," I think their days are numbered. I used my judgement and decided that for a small giveaway like this, it is better to ask for forgiveness then to ask for permission. 

I remain committed to my belief that  doing acts of kindness is the best way to reach people in our overly-sensitive culture with the love of God. The Redemption Movement is a Bible-based church that takes the command to evangelize seriously, and we have discovered that in today's world, serving people's needs with a message of hope is a better approach than going door-to-door with our Bibles or passing out religious tracks downtown. As we push forward and do more acts of kindness to spread God's love, we will continue to learn from our experiences and discover the best way to do things.

I will close with a positive story from this giveaway. I gave out a shopping bag to a young couple with a cute 6 month year old baby named Emma. I could not resist asking about their baby. The couple told me this was their first one. The father went on to tell me that he loves her so much that he would also like to have a son. I joked about twins, he joked about needing to get 10 jobs if he was to support twins, and he is already working 2 jobs. One of the two jobs he is working is an overnight job at a retail store, the same job I had for 3 years. It is a rather drab job and I chatted with him about its hardships.

I then noticed that the mother was paying for their groceries with food stamps. I quickly pulled out our 30 Days of Kindness calendar and pointed out the Free Oil Change this Saturday and the Parent's Night Out on March 22, where we babysit kids and parents get a date night and a free meal at Joe Ruffino's Italian restaurant. The man seemed interested, but the team of managers standing behind me did not. It was at this time that they made their move and shut me down.

If anybody is interested in joining me and helping out with our controversial acts of kindness ministry. Feel free to contact us, we have 24 more AoKs to go before our big grand opening on Good Friday, March 29.

  

Day 5: Free Laundry - 30 Days of Kindness

Free Laundry was Day 5 of 30 Days of Kindness, and this act of kindness was a great way to sow the seeds of God's love. Except instead of seeds we used quarters, and instead of planting in soil we inserted quarters into coin slots.

For this AoK, I was accompanied by our good friend Virgina, she is one of the Redemption Movement's original "founding four." Together, we visited four Oneonta laundry mats and preloaded the washing machines with quarters. We then left a kindness card and a note that said, "Have a Free Wash On Us!"

 
Being a Monday evening, each laundry mat only had a few people. Interaction was pretty minimal, most people kept to themselves as a they folded their clothes. The best interaction I had was with a man who was loading a washing machine full of clothes. He stepped away from the machine long enough for me to slip in and plop a kindness card and $2.50 worth of quarters spread out across the top of his washing machine. When he came back I asked, "Is this your machine?" He replied, "Yes." I then pointed to the pile of quarters and said, "Here is enough for a free wash. This is an act of kindness our church is doing to show God's love." He muttered out a soft "Thank you," and I swore I saw a smile underneath the confusion on his face.

I mentioned what we were doing to a few other people as I loaded the machines with money. They all said that it was nice and went back to folding clothes. I was not discouraged by this lack of interaction, primarily because I have seen fruit from doing this ministry 2-3 times in the past. There have been several times when I would introduce myself to somebody new, and as soon as I mention our church they would reply, "You're the ones who leave money in laundry machines!" I very much look forward to meeting the new round of people that are touched with tonight's outreach.   

Virginia and I did have another opportunity to perform an AoK while doing an AoK. At the laundry mat on Main St, near the East end of River St., we found a man's wallet sitting on the table out in the open. We ask people if it belonged to them and it did not. One laundry mat patron suggested that we turn it into the police station down the road, seeing as the laundry mat office was closed. Because I am one to never miss an opportunity to drop a kindness car, I left a note and a kindness card to the wallet's owner at the spot where I discovered it saying, "Your wallet has been turned into the Police Station." If he reunites with his wallet, then it should be an easy connection to make that returning it was an act of kindness.

Feel free to contact us if you wish to participate in any more of our upcoming acts of kindness. 

Day 4: Free Car Rinse - 30 Days of Kindness

Free Car Rinse was Day 4 of 30 Days of Kindness, and for this act of kindness, the cold from the temperature could not overpower the warmth from our hearts. Winters in upstate New York are long and messy. Whenever it snows, the roads get covered with salt. This is great for traction, but bad for vehicle paint jobs. Salt and slush are caked on cars for 4-5 months out of the year, and it shows with all the rusted out vehicles on Oneonta's roadways. A good car rinse goes a long way at protecting a NY car from rust.

For this AoK, we set up our power washer in front of our building and offered to rinse the salt and Winter muck off people's cars for free. As a bonus, Laura made hot cocoa from scratch and passed it out to drivers as they waited for their cars to be cleaned. The temperature was a cold 25 degrees outside, making the cocoa a nice touch.

Traffic on River St. is slow on Sundays, and even slower when it is cold. We were set up for 3 hours and rinsed off 4 cars. Now, before you call this event a wash (pun intended), let me go into the details. Two of the cars were driven by seniors. Anytime that you do something to help out the elderly, God (who cares for the widows and commands his church to do the same) will bless your efforts.

One lady was 82 and driving a new Chevy that you could tell she was proud of. Her husband cannot do things like this for her anymore because he is legally blind. As I rinsed off her car, she waited inside where it was warm and had a pleasant chat with Laura. I was sure to tell her about the free oil change that we are doing next Saturday.

Cars number 3 and 4 where a straight-up answer to prayer and a testimony to the power of ministering with acts of kindness. The two vehicles pulled up at the same time, they both belonged to a middle-aged couple. The man got out, he was here for the rinse but did not know what it was about. As soon as I told him that it is a new church he replied, "I am looking for a new church." I tried to remain cool, in a county where 61% of the people are unaffiliated with any religion (much less Christianity), I do not hear those words very often.

The couple made their way inside the building and talked with Laura as I got my rinse on. When I got inside I found out that the man is a contractor who has the same days off during the week as myself, and he wants to volunteer his time to help fix up the place. The building remodeling job has been my biggest challenge with this church plant (a complete gutting out of an entire floor). Thanks to YouTube, I have taught myself several skills, and 90% of the work has been done by me, Laura, and a handful of volunteers. I have prayed for this kind of help for a long time. The timing and provisions of God continue to astound me.

As church planters, herein lies the value of acts of kindness; this is the best way for us to meet people and tell them about church and God's grace. We have been frustrated trying to socialize in places like bars and shows because we have found that most people tend to only interact with the friends they are there with (and having to shout over loud music is no fun). Laura and I are very relational, it is even one of our churches values, but we have many friends and coworkers who we care for and have been friends with for years without church, God, or faith ever being discussed.

Performing acts of kindness forces us to get out and meet new people, sets a positive tone for the interaction, disables social defense mechanisms, and is a natural way to bring up "taboo" topics like God and church. We are excited to think about all the new people that we will meet in the next 26 days!

If you would like to join us in meeting new people with an act of kindness, then contact us, we would love to meet you.

Day 3: Free Bus Rides - 30 Days of Kindness

Free Bus Rides was Day 3 of 30 Days of Kindness, and this was also my first time using the Oneonta Public Transportation. Laura was at work today, which meant that I was going to be riding solo. Personally, I am always excited to do projects like these, they are a great way have an adventure in your own town.

Before I go into how it went, I want to begin by telling you how it did not go, and that is according to plan. Being a newb to the bus system, I thought that I would simply stand in line at the bus stop, be the first one on, and tell the bus driver that I was going to pay for everybody's bus fare behind me. After awkwardly trying this out on two buses, I soon realized that all the riders either had a day pass or a student ID, and nobody was paying with cash.

I had to regroup. What was I going to do with a stack of 50 one dollar bills? The answer was obvious: ride the bus and pass money out to passengers. I mean hey, I was going to give it away anyway, I might as well directly bless the good folks that ride the bus.

I purposely boarded a bus that was shuttling people from downtown to SUNY Oneonta. I waited until everybody was on board, and when the bus pulled out I then begin to interject myself in the middle of conversations by handing people a $1 bill with a kindness card and said, "Excuse me, I am doing an act of kindness with my church to show God's love. Here is a free dollar."

The most common reaction was a big smile and a thank you. A few people seemed confused so I cleared things up by explaining the Free Bus Ride project and telling them that I did not know about bus passes so I am now handing out free dollar bills instead. Almost everybody took the dollar with the card, and several people asked about our church. For the people that asked about our church, I gave them a 30 Days of Kindness calendar and informed them of all the events that we have coming up, which included a mention of our grand opening on Good Friday.

 
Fifty dollars lasted two laps from downtown, up to the college, and back again. Between passing out money, cards, and calendars, I got to talk with several students. I talked with one young man from Brooklyn who is a Music Industry major. When I showed him the calendar and explained how we host shows and we are making our building a space that doubles as a venue for local artist, he seemed very interested in performing some R&B music at our church. I also had a pleasant conversation with 7 young women at one time from the Tri-Sigma sorority. They where interested in hearing about how Laura and I ended up choosing to move to Oneonta from Missouri. 

Several students said this act of kindness made their day. Others promised to pass on the dollar to another person as another act of kindness. There were others that showed an interest in volunteering for upcoming kindness projects; and the best part, every dollar passed out came with a message of God's love. 

Feel free to contact us if you wish to go on your own adventure for a good cause and participate in any one of our upcoming acts of kindness.

Day 2: The Big Tip - 30 Days of Kindness

The Big Tip was Day 2 of 30 Days of Kindness, and this might have been our most tasty act of kindness to date (a close call to make considering the funnel cake giveaway). The concept with this was pretty straightforward; eat out at local restaurants and leave large tips. Since it was a Friday night, and it was just Laura and myself, it actually doubled nicely as a date night.

The Big Tip called for a little different approach then we typically take with our AoKs. Usually, we make sure to hand a person a kindness card and tell them, "God loves you;" but with The Big Tip, we left our waitress a $20 tip inside of a thank you card, along with a kindness card and a personalized thank you message that speaks of God's love.

Laura and I would purposely order something small on the menu (we paid for the food with our money and used the fundraising money for the tip), this way the $20 tip would be more meaningful. For example, if our bill was $8, then the waitress would have in mind that she might receive a $1 tip. It is extremely rare when a tip exceeds the price of the meal, making the tip even more significant.

We visited three Oneonta restaurants, The Red Caboose, Neptune Diner, and Denny's. We posed as mild mannered customers, and ordered something small making the claim that we were, "restaurant hopping." Laura and I enjoyed our evening out together, and filled up quickly on 3 small menu items from 3 restaurants. We don't eat out too often, therefore dining out for us is always a treat.

One need that we wanted to meet was to show appreciation for all the food servers who work on Friday nights, a lonely time when it seems like everybody else is out having fun. Many waiters and waitresses get paid less than minimum wage because tips are supposed to make the difference, but tips do not always cut it. Plus, Christians have a reputation as awful tippers (even pastors), many food servers that I have talked with, dread working on Sunday afternoons because they have to deal with Christians.

We feel Christians should be the most generous people on the planet, because we serve a God who is generous with His love. Christians should be the biggest tippers and the nicest customers when they eat out at restaurants. We hope this message spreads and we look forward to the day when restaurants love serving the after church Sunday crowd.

It is too early to see any fruit from this labor of love, but we were able to see a huge smile on the face of one waitress. As we paid for our meal at the register, an employee who cleared the tables saw the card, smiled, and called over the waitress. Laura and I stepped outside, it was snowing, and we had just enough time to make it to the parking lot and watch the scene unfold through the restaurant window. The 2 employees opened the card read it to each other with big smiles on the faces. They both stood at the table with the thank you card open for a few minutes smiling and talking about it. Worth it.

Contact us if you wish to participate in any upcoming Acts of Kindness.