Gift

Whoever the unnamed angel is that mailed 200 individually wrapped Tylenol to Help Bags – thank you very very much!! Your generous gift will help many people!

Get Out There and Make a Difference!!!

Just a quick note.  A moment hit me today when I realized what we have all really done together since the beginning of June.  These small bags are being placed directly in the hands of men, women and children who may be sleeping in a dangerous abandoned warehouse or a crowded emergency rescue shelter. They are most likely out of hope and out of easy choices. So far 380 Help Bags have been given out to people in need – THREE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY!!!!   We are almost 100 fans strong on Face Book. The concept of Helping the homeless one Bag at a time stopped being a theory and we are charging ahead watching it unfold right in front of our eyes!

Now stop and ask yourself a tough question. If you lost your job tomorrow, and for some of us that isn’t so tough to imagine.  How many missed checks would it take for you to lose your house? Would family take you in? How would you provide for your own family.  Yes – they are tough questions no one ever wants to think about but all of a sudden do you see how fast ‘they’ can be ‘us’? Would you be thankful for a bag with a few essentials and snacks?

If you feel like you want to reach out to the homeless community in your town feel free contact me and I will tell you how easy it is to start a Help Bag chapter in your community! I will be glad to share everything I have learned thus far   : ) Do you feel like there is another population that can benefit from  your time, experience or attention?  Animals shelters? Adult literacy? ESL?  Your children’s school or activity? Find your passion and get out there!!!  Make it a family event! Times are hard for all of us – I literally could walk to my desk tomorrow and not have a job and I have dealt with that for 2 weeks. But I saw first hand 180 people this week that I know are way worse off than I am.

So here is your challenge this week. Think about where you could volunteer an hour or two a week – or a Saturday a month and be brave and ambitious enough to get out there.  You can not imagine how rewarding it will feel!!

Have a safe week everyone and work on finding that niche you can contribute to in your town!

Lucky vs. Blessed and Seeing God in Action

My friend Sharon said something one time that has stuck with me.  She said she didn’t like when people say their lucky – luck has nothing to do with life.  She prefers to say blessed.  It’s true so I have tried to adopt that saying as well.

Tonight was such a great night at neXus Church!  The ’2nd week once a quarter’ group from Forest Hill is such a hoot to work beside.  Members like Brooke and Nancy are so energized and happy.  I really believe that their fun fantastic attitude is felt and then shared by the people we serve as they passed thru the dinner line.  And throw in regulars like Kat and Don and what a fun night you have of serving! But I almost didn’t take part in it.

I thought there was enough supplies on hand to pass out Help Bags tonight but we were 63 snacks short of the 200 needed. I was a little disappointed but if there had been enough supplies I never would have got to see God’s hand at work tonight in the back serving dinner like I did so I will call that ***blessing #1***.  Help Bag hand out being pushed to July 26th was a great thing!!

Blessing #2 came from my church.  Several people had donated small hotel shampoo, conditioner, bar soap and a lot of small lotions. There was a hotel comb in there as well.  I wasn’t sure that since a lot of homeless or those people in transition don’t have access to daily showers that it wouldn’t be something they could use.  Duh – if God provides something I need to not question it.  I’m still learning that one!  I put a shampoo, conditioner, lotion and bar soap in a sandwich sized Ziploc and had roughly 25 bags.  Then I had an extra 20 small hotel lotions as well…and that comb.

When they opened the doors there weren’t a lot of people in there at first so I decided since I didn’t have enough for the estimated 150 expected that night I would go out right then and ask if anyone was interested in a bag of toiletries.  Well guess what – they sure did!!!  I started to run out and several men approached me to see if I had lotion… ((giggle))) God moment… So I ran out to my car and got the extra bags of lotion.  Then as I passed out the last lotion an older man with a scraggly white Santa type beard and long hair pulled me aside and asked if I had a comb because he had lost his 2 weeks ago.  I said I sure did and ran out to my car and grabbed the donated hotel comb for him.

Help Bags and working with neXus in general has taught me a lot of things.  The most important is stop questioning when weird things happen and just go with it – it’s all for a reason whether you realize it at the time or not.

So here is my challenge for all of you – recognize your God moments this week. We all have them just sometimes we don’t take the time to be still and recognize them.

Have a blessed week everyone and take some time out to just be still : )