Two weeks ago, most Grovers returned home to celebrate Holy Week with their families, while others went on vacation or camping with friends. Not me. I spent my days in a struggling town called Jeannette.

When my friend Nick told me three months ago that he was going on an ICO trip, I had no idea that God was going to pull me into one of the most impactful experiences of my life. One minute I was listening to Nick tell me the application deadline had passed, and the next I was part of the ICO family headed to Jeannette.

On our first day of the trip, I was told that we were painting at Mosaic Community Church. At first sight, it doesn’t look like a church at all–more like a business. Little did I know how much God was going to reveal His magnificent love to me through this church.

A core priority of the body of Christ at Mosaic is to truly understand their community and work as Christ’s hands and feet to show mercy by meeting needs and bringing restoration. And there is great need for restoration. Between poverty, racial injustice, and the economic turmoil brought on by COVID, the leaders of the church have taken great pain into account, and they’re doing something about it.

Realizing that much of the turmoil in Jeannette comes from systematic brokenness, Pastor Nate and the team at Mosaic thought critically about how to bring sustainable transformation. They wisely concluded that the issues are far too lofty for one church to tackle. The answer lies in raising up an entire generation of leaders shaped by Christ who are willing to sacrifice to serve their broken community.

With this in mind, the church has poured its focus into providing leadership training for Jeannette’s youth. This presents many difficulties, because youth in poverty aren’t necessarily inclined towards enrolling in leadership programs of their own accord. This means the church has to get creative in its outreach. They do this by showing kindness in tangible ways to the community through delivering emergency food boxes and COVID supply boxes, providing tutoring and fun youth activities. Simultaneously, they intentionally build relationships to show people Jesus.

Another piece of the puzzle is that Jeannette has a high representation of the African-American community, which necessitates cross-cultural ministry. This requires church leadership to learn eagerly about cultural differences among the youth so they can build strong relationships based on sincere understanding. Mosaic takes this relationship-building seriously, which enables them to represent Christ powerfully.

From their contextualization efforts in cross-cultural ministry, to their vision and execution of demonstrating God’s love in tangible ways, Mosaic Community Church is a light in a dark place, shining as an extraordinary example for the body of Christ to imitate. I was blown away by God’s love for our lost world demonstrated through Mosaic, and I can’t wait to see how He continues to magnify His love through his body, the Church.