This advent, our volunteer Patrick Norwood speaks about the importance of putting our words into action.
I have often been taught that actions speak louder than words and that people may doubt what you say but they believe what you do.
Never has this been more evident to me than last summer when I was in Medias, Romania as a Habitat for Humanity Youth Build leader. We were helping build a facility for local people who had a physical, mental or learning disability to live and work for a better quality of life.
I witnessed teenagers from Northern Ireland work in unison with Romanian builders for a common goal with extremely minimal verbal communication in the same language. We got a chance to meet the beneficiaries of the project who offered a hand of gratitude and a smile of appreciation for our young volunteers. As a team we saw how our actions were impacting on real people. The team realized new abilities, grafted together and by the end of the week had formed unique friendships.
More importantly we realized the impact of these people on us. Their contentment and visible positivity gave us motivation to action hope for them.
How often do we try and say the right things and does this always show how we really feel? God fed hope for us by sending his son and he taught us through his example. Through the work of Habitat for Humanity we can see God’s love as an action and more than something we can just express with words.
