Making a Clean Sweep

My sister, two of our cousins and I who all live in the greater Phoenix area take turns hosting our extended family for Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas dinners.  This year I’m in charge of Thanksgiving.

One of the many reasons I look forward to my turn as host for these occasions is that entertaining others forces me to take care of all the cleaning and repair jobs I’ve been putting off—tightening the loose knobs on the kitchen cabinets, washing the windows, shampooing the carpet, etc.  When I have a firm deadline to meet (this year, that’s November 26), I can no longer tell myself that I’ll wait to replace the dead rosebush out front until I have some spare time.

Hosting the recent Presbytery meeting had the same effect on many of us in the church.  First Bill Wentling, Tina Trowbridge and I toured the premises together, making a list of things that needed to be fixed or cleaned; then the congregation mobilized to deal with the most immediate items in order to make a good impression on March 29.

At the risk of overlooking someone who helped, I would like to thank:

• Bill Wentling, Gabe Conwell, Harry Wilson, Don Berg, and Max McVicker—the “Saturday crew”—for painting and fiberglassing the fountain; hanging signs and pictures all over the campus; working with the plumber to get our bathrooms in shape; and handling many other painting and repair jobs both inside the church and out.  They also set up the courtyard for the day of the Presbytery meeting and formed the core of the group that took everything down on Sunday.
• Tina Trowbridge, who personally deep-cleaned bathrooms, windows, mopboards, carpets, and much more, and supervised the Church Campus Cleanup activities on March 22.  Tina is our very own “white tornado.”
• Everyone who showed up on March 22 for the cleanup day.  In addition to the Saturday crew and Tina, that group included Donna Roth, Dawn Nolan, John and Barbara Szantho, Marilyn Uithoven, Gene and Anita Downing, Sharyl Moen, Vonda Hagen, Rod Beale, Charles Sedgwick, Gloria Bouckenooghe, Diane Nestlebush, and Martha Porter.  Among other things, those present dusted and vacuumed the Sanctuary pews and restocked the pew racks with fresh materials; washed windows; cleaned the tables and dusted and vacuumed the chairs in Swain Hall; oiled the interior and exterior wooden doors; vacuumed carpets and upholstered chairs in the hallways and Fireside Room; and knocked down cobwebs from the corners of the rooms.

Everyone involved did an amazing job; I think that reflects the pride we all take in our beautiful church.  However, during the three weeks or so that all this activity took place, about half the workers who helped said variations of the same two things to me: “I didn’t know the church had gotten this dirty,” and “We should do this at least twice a year so it never gets this bad again.”

Amen to that!  I will be scheduling another cleanup day this fall to help get the campus ready for the annual influx of winter visitors (think “potential new members”!) and the holiday season.

Cleanliness may not actually be next to godliness in importance, but why take that chance?

  ~Beth Mabee

“Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.” 
 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe