HUDSONVILLE, Mich. — A pavilion outside Covenant Community Church on Baldwin Street was filled on Monday night – filled with people, with the music from a two-man string band, and filled with hope.
Covenant’s property is home to an organization called Starlight Ministries. It’s a group that offers Christian-based education and support to people who are on grief journeys. Monday’s event was a groundbreaking for a gift Starlight is providing to the community – Hope and Healing Gardens that anyone can come to when they’re feeling down.
“We so want people to come and experience God in these, in this space - hurting people, whether they’re going through a death loss or something else. Coming to a space that they can sit and be and just reflect and just be quiet and listen for God's voice,” said Starlight’s executive director Jolynn Van Wienen.
“We’re hoping that it will be a place where people can come and have coffee together. It's going to be a beautiful area with water features and a big standing stone in the middle of it, just to symbolize that God has not left.”
Jolynn says her family’s faith is the only thing that got them through one of the darkest times in their lives. In 2007, their 10-year-old son Seth passed away after being hit by a car while trying to cross the street.
“We sent our kids to a grief camp, and it was transformational for our kids. It was amazing how eight hours of a day transformed their lives. They were not the only ones having nightmares. They were not the only ones who were crying themselves to sleep at night or feeling like they had a target on them at school,” she said.
Jolynn and her husband got to work trying to figure out how to create something similar to that grief camp. But they wanted it to be in a Christian setting, and they wanted it to be a long-term place people could visit over and over again. Starlight Ministries was born, and eventually it found a home at Covenant Community Church.
“In the human life, everybody loses someone, and the church hasn't historically been the greatest place for after-loss care. We can do a great job of giving a funeral, but the next three months, the next three years, we don't always do the greatest job.” said pastor Jamie DeVries, who reached out to Jolynn after hearing about Starlight.
“We had never met before. We had never talked before. I had talked to one of the people that worked for Starlight, but never Jolynn. And within a few days, we had started a scheduled a meeting, and got together and talked about what it could be like if Starlight came to the campus of Covenant Community Church.”
Ever since then, Starlight has been offering grief support for people of ages inside rooms at the church, designed to create a comforting atmosphere. The Hope and Healing Gardens will give the ministry a new way to reach people experiencing grief. It will be open to anyone regardless of their membership status at the church or the ministry.
“Excavation is going to happen this fall, and then next spring is when we're going to start bringing in the bigger things - the fountains and the standing stones and the benches and the chairs,” said Jolynn, who noted that the garden is expected to cost between $250,000 and $300,000.
“People are able to purchase things in honor or in memory of somebody. They'll be able to purchase a paver and have or a chair or a plaque for their person. They can also sponsor a bush or a tree, and just to do different things that they can become involved.”
Jolynn also says the ministry is in need of gardeners who can donate their time to the upkeep of the gardens. If you’d like to help, you can find the ministry’s contact information on their website.
Do you have a deeply personal story with a call to action? That's what One Good Thing is all about! Email your story ideas to OneGoodThing@13OnYourSide.com.