On September 24, Trinity Lutheran Church in Sanford participated in God’s Work. Our Hands. (GWOH), a few weeks after the designated date because of various scheduling details. The event was a Fresh Change Packing Party, to provide a change of clothes in small backpacks for Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) for immigrants being released from U.S. Customs and Border Protection custody.

Many church members enthusiastically contributed clothing or money to buy clothing for the project. Others helped with snacks for our fellowship time during the packing party. A happy group gathered after worship for the event. While we munched on snacks (it was getting on towards noon!), we watched some brief videos from LIRS describing their work and its importance. Then people got to work on the assembly line, filling the backpacks with the clothing items.

We were delighted to have two young visitors with us that day who proudly wore their GWOH T-shirts from their own congregation in another state while eagerly assembling bags of clothing. Our small but mighty congregation assembled 33 backpacks on this day, and we have funding to do more!