A mass of Battle Ground community members gathered in Kiwanis Park at 9 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 7, preparing to serve their neighbors in a semiannual effort known as Love Battle Ground.
Jobs handed out and assigned at the meeting range anywhere from raking up leaves across someone’s yard to helping renovate a nonfunctional bathroom.
“It’s almost invariably someone in that situation, widow, widower, down-and-out whatever, so that’s how it started,” said John Zora, a deacon at Battle Ground Northwest Gospel Church.
The original concept started with Jon Siebert, a former youth pastor from Summit View Church, who would take the middle and high schoolers to the Yakima Indian Reservation and perform community service there.
“You look at the youth groups and the most excitement among the youth was doing service projects,” Zora said. “Service work and putting your faith to work, that’s where it started.”
The legacy of Siebert’s youth group trips passed down from Summit View Church to Battle Ground Northwest Gospel after Summit View became part of the Northwest Gospel Churches.
In 2019, it became what is now known as “Love Battle Ground”.
“Our first full year of services was the announcement of COVID,” Zora said. “We survived through online and once we got back on our feet, we’re meeting at some different places.”
Projects and jobs for the volunteers at Love Battle Ground are never in short supply thanks to the help of Sharon Wodtke from the Battle Ground Senior Group.
“She’s the one that feeds most of these projects to us,” Zora said. “She probably feeds us about 40 projects a year. We have additional ones we put on that maybe people from within the church, people in the community, we’re driving around, we see a problem, it’s like ‘hey, do you need help?’”
No project is impossible to undertake thanks to the size and scope of people who come and volunteer with Love Battle Ground.
“We had a single mom and her back fence was decrepit and needed to be replaced,” Zora said. “We came in and did it with 12 great guys, we got different skill sets, we put the whole thing together in 5 hours.”
Another year, Zora and his group were taking care of a woman who had lost her daughter and whose son was living on the streets.
“It took her a full year to be able to say ‘I can do the memorial service’,” Zora said. “Yeah she needed some stuff done around her yard, but half of it is connecting with her and being support for her.”
This year, some of the men from Zora’s church have been working to help a family renovate and restore a bathroom.
“We’ve got a guy, he’s blind, he’s got four kids and one of them is going blind, it’s a genetic problem, and he had a flood in his house,” Zora said. “We’ve got guys out there this week doing work on their own after hours.”
Volunteers range from young kids who have just entered into youth group, to skilled general contractors.
For Zora, what matters isn’t so much the skill level of the people who come and join, but rather what they believe is important behind the mission.
“One of the key things I like to reiterate is, it’s called Love Battle Ground, but I say it’s called Love Battle Ground People,” Zora said. “I always tell people that are involved, like our team leads, the most important thing is connecting with the person you’re doing the work with ahead of time.”
In about six years since the start of this community effort, Zora has seen around 200 people begin attending the gatherings and helping out with the needs of their community.
“I’m impressed with the people that turn up and do this because you don’t just wake up and say ‘I’ve got plenty of time’,” Zora said. “We all got projects, we all got things to do, but they’re making the decision on their own to do it and I’m so impressed with the amount of giving and energy that people are pouring out there.”
The desire to give time, energy and service to the community resonates on a deeply spiritual level with Zora.
“In 1 Peter 2:9, it says ‘you are my chosen people, you’re my special possession, a royal priesthood, you’re taken out of darkness’,” Zora said. “I always say that we’re not going to be burning incense or sacrificing animals, we’re going to be weed-whacking, cutting hedges, we’re going to be power washing, those are our royal duties.”
