Here’s a message from Campus Pastor Tim Hartzler to our volunteer family.
We are now most of the way through April, and we are eagerly looking forward to May with hopes of warmer weather, sunshine and less COVID-19. As we navigate the current world we are living in, we all must adjust our lives around a myriad of new regulations and mandates. This leads to quite a bit of uncomfortable change.
Here at Christian Children’s Home of Ohio, we have had some noticeable changes as well. Whether it is our residents eating meals and doing schoolwork in their cottages (rather than the Leadership Center), or utilizing video chats for visits with family members, to not taking residents off campus for outings, one of the largest changes can be felt on Saturday mornings.
Not two months ago, if you were to come to our campus on a Saturday morning, you could count on finding one of our wonderful volunteer groups running lively activities in our recreation center, preparing a delicious lunch in our commissary, and faithfully discussing the Gospel with our residents. Now Saturday mornings here are met with a quiet calm that leaves me with a small feeling of emptiness.
And I am not the only one that feels that emptiness. As I walk through our cottages, the residents ask me almost daily when our volunteers will be back on campus. I want so badly to be able to say, “You will see them this Saturday,” but unfortunately like so much right now, I do not have an answer. So, we will continue to wait it out, and pray for better days ahead.
To all our volunteers, mentors and visitors, please know that you are in our hearts. You all have sacrificed so much for our residents and staff and we miss you dearly. We love each of you and look forward to getting back together again.
