There’s a lot going on at the Methodist Church this week. A car
wash was planned for last Saturday as a fund-raiser to send
volunteers on a mission trip to Tonga.
There’s a lot going on at the Methodist Church this week. A car wash was planned for last Saturday as a fund-raiser to send volunteers on a mission trip to Tonga. Now, if you’ve ever worked at a car wash, you know just how labor intensive it is. The cars just keep coming, and your arms begin to ache, and you feel like it will never end as you wipe down car after car. Teenager Felix Kirchner came up with the perfect phrase for announcing the car wash to everyone in church: “We’re having an endless car wash!”
Eighty-something-young Norma Bandy was making signs, ER nurse Carolyn Warner was baking cookies, Jan Kubik had collected old towels, and plans were going well. That is, until the fire marshal paid a visit and let the Methodists know that they couldn’t be holding fund-raising for charity car washes without the proper permits. The wheels for the car wash were already in motion when the trustees read the fine print and realized the impossibility of meeting the requirements for the permit quickly enough. Local engineer Cara Silva came up with an alternative plan.
“Hubs and windshields will be our specialty and will be done with a smile!” she said, and so the waterless car wash was born. It was a great success, thanks to the generosity of all of you who stopped by to have your interiors vacuumed and your hub caps buffed.
Former Gilroy High Chamber Singer Jen Kubik and her sister, current Chamber Singer Michele, are two of the volunteers going to Tonga. Their mom Jan joined with Natural Resources Conservation manager John Warner and his daughter Katelyn to transport the kids to Sanger (near Fresno ) last Tuesday. The Gilroy travelers joined 11 adults from Sanger United Methodist Church and their youth group, led by Pastor Sifa Hingano, who is leading the expedition to Tonga , along with Gilroy ‘s United Methodist Pastor Alison Berry.
The group gathered for a prayer before setting off for the bus ride to the Los Angeles International Airport for the flight to the islands. The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity as they collected recycling, worked at car washes, and participated in a Walk-A-Thon which took them down a trail from Morgan Hill all the way to Hellyer Park in San Jose, nearly a 20 mile trek. Vi Taylor was out at the halfway point in charge of water and food to revive the walkers for the second half, and it must have worked because walk-a-thoner Steve Teraji and Pastor Berry were racing each other to the finish line. Also participating in the Walk-A-Thon and joining them for the Tonga adventure is Spencer Gearing, son of Gilroy’s Happy Dog Pizza purveyors. Thanks to his mom, the group has been enjoying plenty of pizza as they prepare to go.
Since Pastor Berry will be arriving in Tonga today and will be out of town for the next three weeks, a stellar line-up of speakers is slated to fill in: Charles Krahenbuhl (known for his definitive portrayal of Ben Franklin in last year’s play, “1776,” a former elementary school teacher, and famous around town as last year’s teacher-of-the-year Janice Krahenbuhl’s husband), Hugh Gailey (retired astrophysicist and construction expert), and Claudia Salewske (an SJSU faculty expert in rhetoric and composition and the author of “Gilroy (Images of America Series).”
“I always wondered why God sent me here,” Pastor Sifa (as he’s known) spoke to the Gilroy group before the trip. “Why was I sent to this faraway church in this small town? But now the whole town of Sanger is making this trip possible – they have donated enough supplies to fill two cargo containers: books, jackets, school supplies, a boat, a tractor, and even an ambulance fully stocked with medical supplies. Engineers Without Borders is helping install a solar power water pump, and we’ll be setting up computer labs and high school libraries. Now I know why I am here. Thanks to the generosity of those in Sanger and now thanks to those of you from Gilroy, I am able to go back and make a difference for literally hundreds, if not thousands, of people in my village.”
You can hear the guest speakers at 10am each Sunday for the next three Sundays at the United Methodist Church located on the corner of Fourth and Church Street. Call 408-846-4269 with any questions.
