Acton

Acton. Week seven. When I think of Acton, I think of a number of things: a church just beginning with an amazing vision for their community, Joseph, and the fun times we had as a team.

Crossing Community Church is a church plant from Erin church that just started earlier this year. Their name says it all: Community. Crossing is all about the community.

“We believe God is leading us to create a space in the middle of downtown Acton; a space familiar and comfortable. A space where we can build relationships, build community and introduce people to the love of Jesus Christ.”

Crossings Community Church was able to buy a building on downtown. A building that was originally a theatre, but over the years it has changed many hands and was recently a pool hall and night club. Crossings is in the process of renovating the building into a coffee shop (Roxy Coffee) in the front and a place where the church will meet on Sunday, but it will also be available for music concerts, lectures, dances, games nights, and youth events. An open and inviting place to hang out, and through the relationships built there, to be introduced to God and His love for us.

Joseph was a little boy that we all fell in love with. The first day, he was so excited about camp and loved everything about it. The second day, he didn’t want to come to camp because he didn’t want to leave his mom. His mom was trying to convince him to go to camp, while we were having our team time before camps started. We all went to him and tried to convince him that camp would not be the same if he didn’t come that day and that we would all miss him. Finally we were able to convince him to come. His mom came up to us afterwards, to thank us and to tell us Joseph’s story. His parents went out the night before to see a movie. Joseph got scared, and didn’t want his mom to leave his sight. Joseph, his little sister, Rebecca, and his half brother, Samuel, were all adopted by the same family. Joseph and Samuel were adopted at the same time; Joseph was three and Samuel one, and later Rebecca was adopted when she was born. Samuel and Rebecca don’t remember being adopted – but Joseph does. He still lives with the fear that his parents will leave and never come back. That week, Joseph and I became good friends. Nearly every time we had to walk to the bathrooms (they were on the other side of the park, so we took a couple of bathroom trips with all the campers), Joseph would hitch a ride on someone’s back – mainly me. On the last day of camps Joseph said to me “I need a picture of you so that I always remember you.” A few weeks later, in the Acton newspaper, there was a picture of Joseph on my back.

Hanging out with the team. We were able to hang out with each other every night. It was a great. We had dinners together with both of our hosts families, played crocket, went horse riding (well actually, we went around the ring a couple of times), had an AIA photo shoot, went fishing, had campfires, and sat on the dock talking. Thursday night is a night that I’ll never forget. Although we hung out all week, we never had a “team night” where we talk about things that we were all dealing with. That definitely caught up with us on Thursday. We all had stuff going on and Thursday night was the breaking point. We were able to talk about the things that we were talking about – and through tears, laughter, and hugs we grew. We grew stronger as individuals, and closer as a team.