When Walter Good first told Lorene, his wife, that he wanted to do winter service in Tucson, Ariz., she told him she wasn’t ready yet. As an active teacher, Lorene wanted to keep working for a few more years. Walter agreed but kept bringing up the possibility of SOOP in Tucson. Finally, at age 67, Lorene decided it was time to retire and go.
“I knew I could always volunteer in the summertime, but Walter [who is a farmer] could volunteer in the winter,” she says. And so the Minier, Ill., couple headed to Tucson in their RV to test the waters and see if they liked it. That was 14 years ago; they have gone back every year since.
SOOP, a Mennonite Mission Network service program for adults and families, has locations across North America, and Tucson is one of them. A community of Mennonites has grown there, based around Shalom Mennonite Fellowship and supported by the Mennonite Voluntary Service unit and the SOOPers.
Because Lorene has been going to Tucson for so many years, the local food bank has allowed her to do filing in their office one day a week, a job they don’t usually give to volunteers. She also has volunteered in school classrooms, and this year she worked two days a week at the Adaptation Station, a business that makes everything from furniture to toys for clients with physical and cognitive disabilities.
Walter works for Community Home Repair Projects of Arizona, going into the community to make repairs on homes that are owned by people who might otherwise not be able to afford to fix them. The repair groups go out in pairs, a SOOPer and a Mennonite Voluntary Service (MVS) member together, sometimes with local residents who volunteer, too.
“SOOP is the backbone of our organization,” says Scott Coverdale, the director of Community Home Repair Projects of Arizona. “They bring depth, history and patience.”
He says that the intergenerational teams of Mennonite volunteers grow together and learn from each other.
“It can be challenging to have different generations working together,” he says. “People have had to learn to respect each other and adapt expectations. It’s a great added dimension in learning and working with others.”
“I appreciate the wealth of experience and skill that SOOPers bring,” says Miriam Regier, a Tucson MVSer who works at the home repair organization. “They usually use some trick that I can learn, like setting a door on shims while hanging it to get just the right height.”
Regier says she appreciates the thoroughness and resourcefulness of the SOOPers as they work on projects, not to mention the additional hands they bring every year.
“This year the SOOPers nearly doubled our crew,” she says, “making it possible for us to repair more homes.”
The SOOPers live in various places—some in their RVs, some in the former Mennonite Voluntary Service house and some with Shalom members. There is also a room in the current MVS house where the SOOPers gather for fun.
Because a number of the SOOPers live on the same campus as the MVS house and use the house washing machine and clothesline, there are plenty of the small, ordinary interactions that happen when people share space.
“They’re good neighbors,” says Regier. “One SOOPer put some love and time into making our compost healthier, others fixed several of our dining room chairs and our front door.”
One night a group of Mennonites from Colombia came to visit Tucson, and the SOOPers invited them to play games—an event that turned into a spontaneous question-and-answer time with a translator. It helped educate the SOOPers about everyday life in Colombia, dispelling perceptions about drugs and violence often reflected in the U.S. media.
For the Goods, their commitment to Tucson for the past 14 years comes from their enjoyment of the place and from their desire to serve. “We really enjoy the service and we really enjoy the church there,” Lorene says. “I think throughout our lives we’ve been interested in serving the church, and this is just one of the ways we can continue as long as we have the health to do it.”
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Mennonite Mission Network, the mission agency of Mennonite Church USA, leads, mobilizes and equips the church to participate in holistic witness to Jesus Christ in a broken world. Media may contact Andrew Clouse at andrewc@mmnworld.net, 574-523-3024 or 866-866-2872, ext. 23024.
