“We want to live well, but our foremost efforts should be to help others live well.” 1 Corinthians 10v24 (MSG)

As time passes, the number of sick people increases, the economy suffers and the life of quarantine gets heavier. I’ve talked with many people who have struggled with unexpected levels of anxiety and depression in the face of such uncertainty and isolation.

I am a firm believer that lack of vision and direction causes an aimlessness that can be detrimental to the human soul. We weren’t made to just sit and wait. You were made, as the Shema says (in Mark 12), to

“love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind, and with all of your strength. And love your neighbor as yourself.”

To live life to the fullest is to ensure that, in any given situation, you are either engaging your own chaos or engaging the chaos of a neighbor. And sometimes, engaging the chaos of a neighbor helps engage our own chaos; it helps us realize our purpose…it allows us to live the way we were created to live. We are all so deeply loved by God…and it is our calling to know how to share the love we have been given.

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Right now in NYC, things are bad. We don’t want to utilize this platform as another news outlet, so if you are unaware of how bad it is there, feel free to take a few minutes and read about how hard they’ve been hit with the Coronavirus. In summary, the medical facilities are overrun with chaos. Doctors are working around the clock; risking their lives to save others. You can get a feel for just how crazy it is if you just look at this visual of concentrated Covid-19 cases right now:

But NYC isn’t the only city struggling, and many more cities have a delayed peak that is yet to come. Medical workers in these concentrated areas could use some strength right now…especially as they anticipate the worst that is still yet to come.

The literal definition of encouragement in the Scriptures is:

“to give courage to; to give or increase confidence of success; to inspire with courage, spirit, or strength of mind; to embolden; to animate; to incite; to inspirit.”

Encouragement isn’t just saying nice things…it’s literally pouring courage (confidence, strength, etc.) into a person so that they can push through the obstacles in front of them.

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Do you think a medical unit in NYC (or elsewhere) could be strengthened, filled with confidence, and given more courage by a group of random strangers from hundreds of miles away?

Let’s find out!

Here’s the plan:

We are going to put together a montage of digital encouragement for our neighbors in the medical field. We have several contacts that we can send this to within NYC hospitals so we are going to send this encouragement to them FIRST and ensure it’s distributed to the doctors, nurses, etc. who need it the most. THEN, we will start targeting other hospitals locally and nationally.

We need your help…we need encouraging videos to piece together as a mosaic…we need lots of voices and faces saying, singing and doing lots of awesome things.

We need you to upload send an audio or video (try to keep it to around 20 seconds) that contains anything that you think might fill a medical worker with courage. This can be recorded on your smartphone and sent into covidsupport@radiusgreenville.org (please put “Medical Workers” in the subject line). We’ve included a guide for shooting a video on your phone. Your email client may not let you send you send a large video file, so read this if you don’t know how to include a linked video within an email.

We would suggest any of the following:

• Do not mention any particular location (i.e. New York) so we can utilize this encouragement towards multiple hospitals after we distribute to hospitals in NY.

• Record a prayer specifically for the medical workers.

• Record your heartfelt expressions of gratitude. If you have kids, please consider letting them express gratitude as well. Think of how much a the smile of a child inspires you…and see if your children would be willing to do the same for others who could really use it right now!

• Record yourself reading passages of Scripture.

• Present the Gospel; apply it specifically to this situation.

• Tell a story that illuminates the importance of their work right now.

• Write a letter and scan it in or send to to us…we can include this along with the video.

• Draw something encouraging…something that medical workers could hang not their wall. Scan it in and send to us!

  
  

We also HIGHLY recommend inviting others to join in on this as well. Getting involved in loving neighbors is therapeutic for everyone! Share this opportunity! The more videos we have, the more variations of this we will make to send to multiple hospitals. We will be sure to share the final product of this when the project is done.

Please send ALL video/audio files (remember ~ 20 secs) to covidsupport@radiusgreenville.org (“Medical Workers” in the subject line). , Read this if you don’t know how to include a linked video within an email.

We would like for ALL submissions to this engaging chaos project to be sent by midnight on Sunday, April 5th. We want to get this to the hospitals in NYC first before the worst of this happens. Please send them in as soon as possible so we can start editing!

Thank you all for your willingness to engage chaos.

It’s a beautiful thing to see so much love in the midst of so much darkness.