One Church, 7 Chainsaws, and a God-Given Desire to Serve!

New Song’s 100-acre campus is a beautiful slice of Brown County. Fall is especially scenic as the leaves turn vibrant on the many trees that surround the campus homes. Much of this beauty comes naturally, as a gift from God, but some comes through ground maintenance and the hard work of volunteers and campus staff. Trees are always growing, and new seedlings pop out of the ground every year, while other trees die off. Managing dead trees on the property is a significant task that requires skill and equipment. This summer New Song’s campus director, Kyle Augsburger, marked over 30 standing dead or dying trees surrounding the campus homes and the Joyful Noise Playground. He knew the removal of this many trees was a project that would require the help of skillful volunteers.

When Kyle visited Grace Chapel in West Liberty, Ohio in August to share about the work God was doing at New Song, he mentioned the need for a team of people with chainsaws and felling experience to visit New Song and remove dead trees. After the service, Jim Thurman of West Liberty responded as God moved him to get involved. He found Kyle and said, “I think I can put a team together to come help you out. We have a lot of guys who can run a saw in this church.” Being a rural community, a number of the members were well equipped to safely cut down trees, so Jim and his wife, Kendra, began recruiting. A couple weeks later they contacted New Song and scheduled an all-day work team for a Saturday in September.

The day they arranged to visit turned out to be one of the hottest days of the summer, about 95 degrees. However, they were not deterred. The team began cutting at 9:00 AM and worked with our campus staff until late afternoon. “It was pretty exciting to hear saws buzzing everywhere and trees falling all around campus,” explained Kyle. By the end of the day, almost every marked tree had been taken down. Even with logs and tree tops scattered across the lawns the difference was immediately noticeable. “Teams like this are priceless to us. We could never have done what Grace Chapel did in 7 hours. It was so encouraging, and we are so thankful,” said Kyle.

Jim and Kendra’s teenaged daughter Maria was working alongside Kyle clearing some branches and she explained how happy she was to be part of the crew. She also shared how special it was to see her father respond to our need for help. Maria said, “Dad can’t always get involved in these kinds of things, but when he heard New Song needed trees cut down he got excited. He started talking to guys in the church and got it organized.” Later that evening Jim told Kyle, “There are a lot of things I can’t do, but cutting down trees is actually something I have a lot of experience with. I’m glad I was able to help.” Jim’s family and the rest of the crew contributed with their skills and their saws to make a huge dent in the work of maintaining our beautiful campus.

Projects on campus range from felling trees to cutting brush, mowing and trimming, construction, painting, cleaning and other special projects. As the Lord supplies the workers, the projects continue. See the list below for a partial list of potential upcoming projects. Perhaps you have skills or materials or funds to contribute to one of these projects:

Need materials and laborers to build a privacy fence around the dumpster area.
Need materials and laborers to construct a gaga pit for the kids to play gaga ball
Need a team to remove several downed logs across the creek
Need a team to clear trails
Need materials and a team to construct a wooden rail fence around the front of the pond

If you’d like to share your skills by bringing a work team to New Song to partner in our mission, please contact us at 812-372-1004 or email us at info@NewSongMission.org. You can also find more information at http://www.NewSongMission.org/mission-trips.