The Strange and Bazaar
Here today, gone tomorow. Karen Hill and Second Congregational make it happen!
On a sweltering August day in Rockford, IL, Elizabeth Kevern, 19, laughs as she tries on a fake wig she found in a pile of donated clothes. Kevern was one of the volunteers who visited Louverture Cleary School this year on a mission trip and was now upholding her mission at home by sorting clothes and other donations for the fourth annual Second Congregational Church rummage sale to benefit The Haitian Project.
Two other mission trip participants, Karen Olson and Amy Pickens, also returned from their visit to the Haitian school on fire for the community. “After our trip, I held a certain place in my heart for The Haitian Project,” Pickens said. The Pickens family had donated their time to the rummage sales before, but this year Amy felt privileged to be able to picture the bright-eyed, determined students of Haiti as she loaded kids’ clothes into cardboard boxes for the sale. Her efforts inspired her young daughter Allison to help sort donations and her husband Jamie to transport the larger items, like heavy furniture, to the sale in his truck. There was a job for everyone and anyone who was willing to lend a hand.
Just like her fellow mission trippers, Karen Olson felt the urge to continue her mission and care for the people of Haiti whom she found are no different than people in the States. “What I often gain through these experiences is the realization that we are all very similar and all children of God. If not for place of birth or circumstances of life, the people who are recipients of our work are indeed very much like us. I was struck by how much the children at Louverture Cleary School were like my own children and their friends,” she said.
When asked how she is able to facilitate a bigger and better sale year after year, rummage sale leader Karen Hill said, “First off, I have faith. This is a great week of my summer because I get to be a part of doing mission in so many ways. Our church neighborhood is home to many group homes and needy people who look forward to our sale, and when we are done, we have a check to send to Haiti.”
Hill enjoys the multi-level mission of helping others in the neighborhood while fighting poverty on a global scale, but sometimes questions her sanity in doing so. There is no doubt that a large event like this comes with a few headaches. “Maybe I’m odd, but I get a rush from pulling off events like this to benefit others,” she said.
Every year, Hill and the Second Congregational volunteers get a kick out of some of the strange items that find their way to the sale tables. “Some years we have had ‘guess what this is’ contests – but some items were never discerned. One year we had what we deemed the ‘blue bird of happiness,’ a big blue ceramic peacock, which sold in the first hour. Another year, we actually had a whole kitchen sink.” Hill said.
Although the identity and rationality of some sale items remain a mystery, Karen Hill and Second Congregational are well known as partners in peace at home and abroad in Haiti.
