Oceanview Community Church ‘s community grew to become international earlier this month when the church hosted a softball team from Georgia, and they worked on a variety of service projects together.
From May 14-19, nine members of the Covenant Christian College women’s softball team and their coach, Sara Russell, lived, worked and played in Ladysmith during a week filled with everything from helping seniors with their yard work, canoeing and a softball game.
During their week in Ladysmith, the softball players served breakfast at the Our Place homeless shelter in Victoria, hiked up Heart Lake, prepared Treat Day for Ladysmith Primary School students, helped seniors with their yard work, went ice skating in Nanaimo, worked with Oceanview volunteers to plant both of the church’s garden boxes, which support the Ladysmith Food Bank, they canoed with Stz’uminus First Nation, participated in an Oceanview church service and played a softball game at Aggie Field with the Oceanview church community.
Oceanview Community Church Pastor Darin Phillips recalls that the week before Christmas, Sara Russell and her family approached him after a morning service. They live in Georgia, and Russell was visiting her parents here in Ladysmith, and Russell explained to Phillips that she has always wanted to take her softball team on a trip to serve a local community and broaden the girls’ horizons, so they partnered to organize a visit to Ladysmith.
Russell grew up on Vancouver Island and then went to university in the States on a softball scholarship. She has been coaching at Covenant for six years.
Her family is in Ladysmith, and when she presented the idea of coming to Vancouver Island to her team, they started talking about ways they could show their faith through service projects.
She described the week in Ladysmith as surreal.
“I’ve had my two worlds collide — my home life and the life I’ve lived the last 12 years,” she said. “It’s amazing to see [the girls] here serving the people I love dearly. It’s been overwhelming. It’s stretched the girls, maybe stretching their faith and stretching their comfort zone –—we’ve done things they haven’t done before.”
The Covenant College women’s softball team is from Lookout Mountain, Georgia, near Chattanooga, Tennessee. The players range in age from 18 to 23.
“It’s really a way for us to serve other people and a way to not necessarily share the gospel but show the gospel through our actions,” said Chandler Shepherd, who is from Georgia, said of their trip.
For Jordan Brett, another Georgia native, one of the coolest things they did was serve breakfast to homeless people in Victoria.
“They were very nice,” she said.
Shepherd really likes kids, and her favourite moments involved interacting with local children, including a practice with the Ladysmith Angels softball team.
“We helped with a nine- to 11-year-olds’ practice, and that was really fun,” she said. “They were really into it and having fun. It was really fun to help them out and encourage them to work hard and stick with it.”
Kaitlyn Sirmons, who is from Florida, was impressed by the people at Oceanview and how generous they were.
“They’re so nice, the way they give of themselves,” she said.
