The concept of Alpha/Omega Teams was conceived sometime in the past 17 years. Little did we know it would take a perfect storm of events in 2018 to see God demonstrate the concept in a powerful way and bring the idea to full fruition.

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One of our faithful teams who come at least twice a year scheduled a trip for the third weekend of January. In December we had a tragic situation occur--one of the mothers in the Parents as Teachers program was killed. Her children were temporarily housed with their grandparents. Unfortunately, their home did not pass inspection by the social worker. They were given 30 days to make their home safe or the children would most likely be split up and placed in foster care.

At this point we were relieved that we had this incredible group of 8-10 skilled men coming 3 weeks before the deadline. Then the flu struck. The day before the team was to arrive their numbers had dropped to 3 and the leader was so sick they had to cancel. We tried to reschedule before the deadline but we could not work it out. The project was bigger than we could handle. I reached out to 4 different people and groups. All 4 responded that they wanted to help. By divine appointment the team that had already worked with this family twice in the past stepped up to the plate and quite frankly hit the ball out of the park, past the parking lot! 

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The Alpha/Omega Team concept was born. We have always called this team Vince’s Team but we might need to call it Erin’s Team. Erin and the rest of the team worked quickly and passionately to respond to the urgent need. From a distance, our staff worked with them on a construction plan. They raised the money and exceeded the construction cost so there is a fund to help the family going forward. Miraculously, they arrived at the house 10 days later! The first day was ridiculously cold, the axle on our trailer broke, a couple of key team members were sick yet they came any way and went to work. After two long cold days the work was done and with the threat of more bad weather they drove back home. 

Our second Alpha/Omega Team ended up being the team that could not come in January! Spirit of Joy has been a huge support to us going back 17 years. Another family had suffered a great loss with the death of their 10 year old son. The mother was 8 months pregnant at the time. She gave birth five days before the team arrived. The urgent need was that the bathroom floor was rotting out and the toilet and hot water tank were in danger of falling into the crawlspace. While working on the bathroom the team discovered that they had a room they could not use because the roof and ceiling were caving in. The team went to work and were successful on both rooms. We had a great lasagna dinner together on Saturday night and the team returned home Sunday.

On March 4th we are going to our sending church,  Mainstreet Church in Walbridge, Ohio. Our hope is to add 2 more Alpha/Omega teams to the mix. God has shown us the proof-of-concept and we now have the model where short-term missions in partnership with long-term missions work together to ultimately realize eternal benefits. Moving from fee-based experiences to fully invested ministry is what God started laying out for us 17 years ago and He has brought it to life this year! Praise God!

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Read more on our blog about Alpha Omega Teams here!