Goldfish and gum and pbandj, oh my!

Did you realize that there are so many people in this world who have so much less than we do? I don't care where you fall on the economic scale, there is someone who falls under you. I can almost guarantee it!!! Sometimes I moan and groan and think we are poor and then I am brought to my knees by the realization that by worldly standards, we are so very rich. But how could that be? We have clothes and a home and clean running water and jobs and groceries aplenty. We are also . . .we humans . . .a selfish people. I like to think of myself as generous. I love to give gifts to others. I love to feed people. I love to surprise others with a treat . ..but I'm still selfish. I believe we come into the world that way for self-preservation (who knows whether that is true or not - just my thought!) and some of us grow and mature and even though that "selfish human nature" is always in us, we overcome it most of the time.

One way that I always remember is by doing service projects/participating in an act of service for others. I wish I had more time to be in service more often.

On this night a few weeks ago, our young professionals group participated in three activities.  They made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches - over 100 of them - for the Church of the Reconciler in downtown Birmingham.  This congregation feeds the homeless every day and they love to have extra peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to hand out.  We have a group from our church that goes down to help feed these folks every Thursday.

I love the pictures of hands at work.  There is another one down below.  We are indeed the hands and feet of Jesus here on earth - doing his work.

This group at the kitchen table started on the project for the Urban Ministry kids.  Our Sunday School class prepares/provides Wednesday night supper for them on the fourth Wednesday night of the even months.  April was the last month of the year (before summer) and we made bags of goldfish crackers for the children. (you can see a picture of the finished projects at the end)  Each child received about 100 goldfish crackers so that was a pretty good treat!!

As soon as they finished the goldfish bags, they moved on to the next project.  There is an apartment complex in town that houses folks with mental illness.  The young adult son of a friend of ours lives there.  We made treat bags for them.  We had to be careful because many of them have diabetes and other health issues so we wrapped big packs of extra chewing gum.  Do you know that we are the only church group who has ever done anything for them before?  We live in a large city.  I was stunned to learn that no one else has ever done anything for them.  I think this activity really touched some of our young adults . . .because this church member who lives there . . .is also a young adult.

 

We had a large group of folks and we even had some new folks.  It was a great night of hands on activities.  God is good.  Yes, he is.  Even when life is hard, God is good.  My scripture for my devotion yesterday said that God is holding my right hand.  I've been clinging to his hand.  What a comfort.