We know God to be a giver of wonderful
gifts. Sierra Service Project is an extension of the Divine Invitation into
a relationship with God. Like God, Sierra Service Project can only invite
but cannot control the response of those invited. Like grace, Sierra
Service Project offers service freely without judging if the receiver merits
our love. As participants of Sierra Service Project, we are the
receivers of God’s grace. We extend that same grace to our hosts by putting our faith into action repairing
and building homes.
We respond to God’s invitation to open
ourselves up to the possibility of a transformational experience. In
community, we begin to recognize our dependence on God and inter-dependence
with each other. As a community, we strive to grow being led by the
Spirit. We choose to serve believing, that through our humble acts of love,
we can learn about God’s character and love for us. We seek to accept
people, as they are from the moment they stand before us, as the first step
toward relationship. We seek to remain open; an openness of hand and of
heart that we might give, receive and understand.
Through our acts of service, we allow the
grace of God to flow into and through our lives. We understand that all
people are valuable, carefully fashioned in God’s image and we are freed to
accept the essential humanity of each person we meet. In reaching out to
others, we follow the example of service set forth by Jesus Christ.
As with Christ, we serve people whose lives
will benefit by our service. We believe that God lives with us and the work
we do with our hands and heart. We realize, that despite the differences in
culture, values, history and geography, we are all brothers and sisters of
worth. Let us accept the Sierra Service Project invitation. “Let us rise
up and build.”
