Open Arms

Wait!

Stop the presses.... it's a MIRACLE!!!!

I am BLOGGING....

Crazy!

Yes, I know it has been like FOREVER since I have sat down to write on here. And I even really miss writing, but life has been.... well LIFE!

But today I just can't contain my excitement and my feeling of DOING what God asked me to.

Not just praying about it with my feet stuck in the mud.

 Not ignoring His call.

 Not using excuses why I can't or am too busy or too tired (and seriously? I AM busy, I AM tired and I AM fighting gloom... but life goes on!)

And I AM going to share it...

I AM going to find the energy to write a few words.

I AM going to find the time to post.

I AM going to shout from the roof tops "It feels GREAT to do what He asks us to!"

And I want you to "get this" right here and right now.

I am NOT bragging, I am only a lowly servant to Him.

 I am NOT telling anyone else what to do with their life or their time, that is between you and your higher power.

I AM sharing what I am passionate about and how it blessed my life today!

For MANY years I have felt a tug on my heart to be involved in a food ministry.

 I have prayed for YEARS for God to reveal to me HOW He wanted it to look, and for wisdom and discernment. I have searched my heart, His word, and pleaded for His leading.

In the last year I have gotten involved with a group at church that distributes meals weekly to the homeless. For almost a year, the kids and I have been making dessert twice a month for the BIG meal that our church group prepares. And for the past 2 Christmases my sister, Faline, and I have overseen the Christmas Eve meal that is cooked for our church family and the local needy.

And yet through it all I have felt Him saying over and over to do more. There is this specific "group" I feel called to bless, a specific hole I feel lead to pour into.

In the time I have been working with this group at church another woman and I have totally "jelled!" on what we were passionate about. Susan and I have known each other for a number of years, and been in church groups together for a very long time. For many months we have discussed a food pantry that would be available to the specific group, plus anyone else God leads to us. Susan especially has poured countless hours into getting all of the paperwork done, the red tape waded through and the details nailed out. Me? I am the worker bee! I carry the boxes, pack the car (because we ALWAYS buy too much for the car we are driving!) and provided whatever support I can to her.

Last weekend we were able to open the doors to Open Arms Ministry's Food Pantry for the first time!!

It was such a joy to finally be DOING it! Not talking about it, but DOING it! And we were totally blessed!

We didn't shout it from the roof tops, but we did hand out fliers to our congregation to use and to share, and we took 25 fliers to a local school. From that we were able to bless 14 adults and 9 children!! I thought it was a GREAT first day!

The most amazing think happened that first day. While we were handing our food items we had 2 people come in and donate food to us. Those two people brought in as much, if not more than the food items we handed out that first day! And we handed out a LOT of food! God totally blessed our works that day! We connected with dear people, and He gave us loaves and fishes!

So this week, during the week, Susan and I prepared again for a open pantry. It was a little hard to know how much we would grow this week, and therefore how much food to get, especially the perishable food that would not hold until next week. This morning was the day, and I was excited to see what God would do!

This morning I think we had close to twice as much food to give away. The fridge was STUFFED full and we had LOTS of frozen meats. It was crazy. I thought we were well prepared, but I also had this nagging little thought in the back of my mind.... what if? What if we only gave out for 20 again this week? Would the food hold? What could we freeze? Where could we distribute the stuff that wouldn't hold?

But then I opened the door for something and saw the people lined up.....

CRAZY!!!!

(Thanks Audrey for taking a team picture for us!!)

We had a wonderful team of volunteers, and we all ran our tails off.

I wish I had thought to take a picture when we were done because this week God brought us 49 adults and 20 children!!! AMAZING. We were OUT of food. Seriously. We had enough for the last people through the line, but there was almost NOTHING left. It was crazy!! Crazy GREAT, but still crazy!

I can not wait to see what the Lord has in store for us next week!

(although I might be just a little terrified too!)

It is SUCH a GREAT feeling to be DOING something to bless people in our community. I can't tell you the high I am on tonight. But then again, just that I am blogging in the midst of my January gloom when I haven't written in a month or so should tell you something, right?

What can you do to make a difference in the community you live in?

We can ALL do SOMETHING!

Get Your Serve On, Post 2

So I kinda left you all on the edge of a cliff yesterday, hu?

Sorry about that...

I have this THING for posts that are too long, and if I did this all together it would be WAY TOO LONG.

So please forgive me!

One of the things that I decided through my prayer is that EVERYONE deserves good food, and a hot meal. I have taken a few different actions on this point.

In March I joined the Least of These team at our church. The Least of These, at that time provided meals  twice a month at the local homeless shelter. My contribution to this effort became making 150 desserts for the meals twice a month.

Each time I would try to make something appealing, homemade, and a touch healthy!

I enjoy taking surplus foods and making them into something tasty... and the reports I get back from the servers is that the folks getting them enjoy it too!

I also try to make it a family event, and the kids help out too!

In about June we added the homeless in the town that our church is located in (the shelter is in another town, about 15 miles away). We would just make a little more and set some aside for the people in our community. We would go down to where they camp and feed them there.

For a LONG time these men and women have been on my heart.

Just in the past month our church has received permission to feed these people each week. This feeding would only be 15-20 meals each Friday. It really is not worth pulling the whole Least of These team together for this few meals, and these folks have really been on my heart. So I volunteered to put the meals together on the weeks that we are only feeding in our town. This past Friday was the first time my family and I did this.

So I used a tray of enchiladas that were left from the feed before (we froze them of course, and I reheated them for this week), and the kids and I added:

Spanish Rice

Beans

Cookies

Apples

Juice Boxes

We packaged the food up to stay warm and the rest in bags to stay cool and then headed down to where they would meet us.

The people were so kind and so thankful. It was a good time of fellowship and sharing Christ's abounding love. Audrey really enjoyed letting her light shine and talking to people.

After a bit we headed out and let them enjoy their meals in peace, but so thankful that we could provide a simple hot meal for them and shower them with a bit of love. I am also so thankful for the Lord's provisions in my life, for without His constant blessings my children and I could be right there too!

Along the lines of providing food, our Least of These team recently participated in the local Hunger Walk. We are able to purchase food at the local food bank for 14 cents a pound to distribute to the homeless and struggling in our community. The Hunger Walk is to raise awareness of the plight of the hungry in our communities, but it is also a way for us to raise funds for our account at the food bank.

Nathaniel and I, along with Pastor Randy, maned the refreshment stop, where we got to hand out water and goodies to the walkers and be a source of encouragement. This was a great task for Nathaniel, as I don't think he could have done the walk with the hills involved, and I wasn't looking forward to pushing his chair up those hills!

Audrey participated in the walk with Susan, who is the director of the Least of These ministry at our church. I was so proud of her, she walked the whole 2 miles happily and let her little light shine on!

It was a great day of fellowship, bringing awareness to an important cause and taking a stand for what we believe to be important. Even if it was a simple task, I still feel that SO MANY MORE could have taken a few hours out of their afternoon and participated, so I was proud of my kids for doing this! An added bonus was that Audrey got her picture in the local paper!

The other area I have been working in is not done yet, but the seeds have been planted and we are watering them!

It is very heavy on my heart to use the surplus groceries in the area to provide food to those that are making ends meet but just barely. Another local church is currently doing this, but they are small and the need is taxing on them. I would REALLY like to join forces with them and provide at our church too. Each church could be open one day a week and we could bless and serve more people. This is still in the works, as we at my church are still seeking more refrigeration and freezer storage on grounds, and the other church is considering how this would best work. But I am in deep prayer over it, and if you would like you could join me! I would LOVE to see this up and going before the winter and holiday season hit too hard.

As I said in the first Get Your Serve On post, I do NOT share these things to bring glory to my children and I, but more to encourage you! There ARE things in your community that you can do to share the love of Christ and be his hands and feet, no matter WHO you are or what you are dealing with.

What have you done recently to Get Your Serve On???

I will be back tomorrow with the final post in this go round of our OTHER service project we have been working on.... can't wait to see you again!

Get Your Serve On, Part 1

About a month ago, on a blog that I read all the time (but seldom ever comment on so I bet Patrice doesn't even know who I am!) a post REALLY struck me in the heart. You can read it HERE.

Patrice and her husband Matt are kindred spirits to me in some ways I think. They have their plate VERY FULL with the care of their special son, but yet they still find time and room in their hearts to serve their God and their community. I find myself often overwhelmed with care for my kids in our situation, yet my heart yearns to serve my Lord and his people. When I saw her challenge I KNEW God wanted me to participate but wasn't sure HOW. Over the next few days, I will chronicle the journey I have been on since joining Patrice in Getting Your Serve On! I KNOW that Patrice asked for ONE blog update... but I am bending the rules! It would just be WAY TOO LONG in one post. Please forgive me!

There is one thing I want to make VERY CLEAR....I am NOT writing these posts to bring glory to myself. Just to chronicle my journey, and hopefully share hope. If I can do it with all we deal with daily, I am SURE ANYONE can find a small way to serve too!

So here goes......

If you know anything about me, you know my heart’s passion is PEOPLE and SERVING.  I also happen to love cooking! Although I am the first to admit that I highly dislike large groups of people, I do love to love on people. A while back one of the blogs authors I read regularly put a challenge out there for her readers to join her in to Get Your Serve On. At the same time, in church we were going through a series on using the gifts God has given us to reach our world. This challenge and series came at a very timely time for me as my heart had been leading me to some reform, and I decided to join in. In thinking and praying on how exactly I planned to Get My Serve On I focused on a number of things.

What’s My Passion???

One thing I have learned through the years is that it is counter productive to serve if the area you are serving is not your passion.  It is my belief that if you are serving in an area to just serve then your time and energy is dry, and I don’t believe that God called us to dry serving. It is also my belief that when you follow the passions God has put in your heart, then He will lead you and guide you and bless the service!

With this in mind, I spent a few weeks in deep prayer over what exactly is my passion. I mean I know I love people. I know I want to serve my community. And I know that I do that. But I really felt I needed to focus, after all my community can be quiet LARGE if I am considering serving them all! So where is the TRUE passion of my heart?

Through this prayer I have come to some conclusions. My heart is passionate for those walking the road of struggle and strife. There are many walking this road, for many reasons, so I asked God to clarify or narrow that vision down and this is what I have heard in my heart:

Many walk the tough rough because of choices that they have made and I have heart for those people.  For me, it is always hard to see fellow humans go without what I consider basic needs (shelter, food, work, basic provisions).

While I have heart for these people, I REALLY have HEART for the people that walk the road of struggle that they seemingly have no control over.  To me some, example of those types of people are:

The families that have disabled or critically ill children

For the most part, these families are dealt a hand no one ever expects to be dealt through no cause of their own. Many of these families deal with financial burdens that are overwhelming, in addition to the constant care of their child or children. Most of these families have little to no community support. And while most of these families struggle daily, most of them do not qualify for public assistance because those programs do not take into account the extraordinary expense of their plight. I could go on and on about how this group struggles daily for the little things, but I won’t do that to you, let me just say these are people that are often over looked and struggle daily.

The people who have been hit hard by the current economy

It seems that people are just struggling so much more recently, and it is so hard to make ends meet for many people. Many times there are families working their tails off to make ends meet and they are falling just short. Many of these people are not spending foolishly or doing anything wrong per say, but they just can’t make it. And the thing that makes me crazy is that there is NO HELP for these people really out there! If you are working hard and trying, then you don’t qualify for many assistance programs, if you have a home, but are just short on the rent no one will help you until you get a delinquency notice. The problem with this that people have to get so far behind that it is near impossible to dig out in order to get help… kind of counter productive if you ask me! So many times these people just need a little hand up but those are so hard to find!

People or families striving to overcome the evils of our society

When I say this I mean domestic violence, abuse, addiction, victims of dysfunctional families, etc.

There are many who cling on who have been negatively affected by these things, and often fitting the profile to access programs can be difficult. There are plenty of programs for victims of PHYSICAL domestic violence, but even the law enforcement won’t help you if you are not getting beat! There are lots of programs for drug and alcohol addiction, but if someone in your family has a different addition our society downplays the effects of that addiction. Sexual addicts, pornography addicts, gambling addicts…. They all have same destructive habits and patterns of any addict and they all destroy the family foundation.

Once God helped me clarify WHO I wanted to bless, then I asked him to lay it on my heart of HOW I could bless these folks. I had an idea of what I wanted to do, but I wanted to make SURE it was the plan and path God wanted me on. Through much prayer and study, I do believe that this path was confirmed!

I believe that EVERYONE deserves and needs an affordable food supply, and meals.

I also believe that certain populations need education and hope provided for them.

Please come back tomorrow to see how God would have me serve in these areas!

(okay... so it's not so nice of me to leave a cliff hanger like this... but the kids are READY to go on a picnic! I promise ... I have pictures and updates on our sevrvice projects... tomorrow!)