Give Away Day

Wow. That is the only word I can think of to describe the Give Away Day our church hosted last night. Our church has a ministry that reaches out to the children of underprivileged families in NWA called Potter's House. It is a huge thing and one that Rhonald and I have always wanted to know more about and get involved in. Last night was their annual "Give Away Day." Families from all over NWA that are in need of a little help at Christmas are able to come and receive one gift per child, a hot meal, enjoy some praise and worship time and meet people who truly care about them. We had no idea what it would be like...and boy were we shocked and blessed at what we were able to be apart of. 450 families signed up to be blessed by this day....450!!!! The families came in the morning to register and get a number and then they came back that evening for the actual event. One woman told me she came at 1 am to line up and people were already there!!! What was so humbling to us is that we live in a very wealthy community...very low crime and an area very focused on education...and there were 450 families there. Wow. I was a gift wrapper and Rhonald was a gift carrier (after I wrapped he carried gifts to cars) and I will say, we were so busy and tired when we left there - but it was awesome! We met some of the sweetest families and got to know people from our church even better too. The smiles we saw were priceless but really, as much as those families were blessed, we were blessed so much more. And we are thankful - for everything we have and especially for getting to be apart of this night. There are so many stories I could share, and I will, but it would take all day. I pray you have a blessed holiday and that you take time to remember where those blessings come from. We were definitely reminded of that last night and I pray we never lose sight of the real meaning of this time of year.