When any great endeavor begins, someone has to show up. When Grace Klein Community began, a lot of amazing people showed up. One of those precious people was Elaine Spivak.
Elaine has delivered a food route for years, building intentional relationships with families. Her sister has served with her as well as all her kids. She pulls up to Asbury UMC, grabs her boxes, prays with people and heads out. Repeat that again and again for approximately 96 months. If she cannot come on the designated Saturday, she picks her boxes up from the Grace Klein Community office. If she has missed, it has been rare and infrequent.
Commitment. Elaine’s life shows commitment and that attribute is valuable in the building and maintaining of meaningful relationships. We can have such good intentions, but if our follow through is sketch, our relationships are impacted. Trust grows when we demonstrate commitment. Showing up says love.
Prayer. Elaine has prayed with and for this community since it all began. She prays with community at monthly food delivery, in the driveway of the office and in the secret of her own home. On some of the hardest days of this community, she was likely praying.
Sharing. When a small church in Oakman, AL, wanted to serve through food delivery, she drove boxes to them for over a year to equip them to serve their neighbors. She shared her fuel, her time, her love to lay down her life for others. When a community member needed to fly across the country for an unexpected family emergency, she helped cover the flight. Today she and her family are sharing their home with community member, Rebekah Lowery, who will leave in June to serve with Grace Klein Community at Kwathu Children’s Home in Zambia. Elaine shares her listening ear, asking people how they are and waiting around to hear the answer.
Encourager. Elaine is a faithful friend. She loves Jesus and that love seeps out over everyone she meets. She is reminding us of what is true, speaking life, and sharing scripture. She sees the good and reiterates the good which helps friends keep their eyes on Jesus.
Lots of the Grace Klein family have never met Elaine and many never will, but we are all better for having her in this community! Find a bible study she is teaching and learn from her. Ask her to pray for you and hear her intimacy with Jesus. Introduce yourself to her and thank her for giving her life away. We are all on this journey together and her example can spur us all on in obedience to Jesus.
Delivering food all over Birmingham is not easy and it takes many committed people who will keep coming month after month, year after year, to give their lives away in relationship with others. Elaine is one of those amazing people. Elaine’s availability and constant commitment, her boldness to pray over friends and strangers, and her sweet words of encouragement are all beautiful acts of worship to the Father. Perhaps people need to be reminded that we will never “fully arrive,” so don’t wait to serve, start now. Seek Him in your serving and in your every day availability, and let Him do the rest. Thank God for Elaine’s labor for Christ and pray God will send more people to give their lives away.
Jesus said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
– Matthew 9:37-38