Just in Time for Thanksgiving

Really, I should say "Just in Time for the Holidays". About the time Thanksgiving is here, you see people warming up for Christmas. My preparation for our church Angel Tree event starts in September, and as social media expands, I see countless posts on Facebook and Twitter about helping families in our community with Thanksgiving dinners, groceries, and Christmas presents for children. I think this is wonderful, but as a person who sees many of these donations, I know that a lot of times, people give their leftovers. They give the jacket that their mother-in-law bought for their child and their child hated it. They give the jeans that have small holes starting in the knees. They give the green beans that are expiring in two weeks. Or the book that has ripped pages. This used to be me. I used to pick through Brianna's clothes and pick out the items she never wore, and then those were the items I would give away. My perspective has changed over the years though. Earlier this year I urged her to pick out one of her MANY winter jackets and told her we were giving at least one to the Angel Tree. She picked out her favorite one and told me that was the one she wanted to give. I will admit, I'm pretty sure I frowned. I mean, that coat was pretty cute. And it was her favorite! Why in the world would she give it away? But, she did. I couldn't think of a good reason for her not to give it if she wanted to. And shouldn't she give her very best anyway? Shouldn't I? We only recently discussed the Widow's Mite (Mark 12:41-44, if you are clueless), and about being cheerful givers. So I must be a good example to her. And I have learned, and continue to remind myself, that this stuff that I own... is just stuff. I don't deserve it more than anyone else. In fact, someone else probably needs it much more than I do. I pray that God continues to soften my heart about this, because I admit I am disappointed in people as a whole when I open up donations to Fed By Faith to find stained clothing or expired food. I know that sometimes it's a mistake. An oversight. But sometimes, it's because we don't want to give our best.

I just finished a book called "Stones for Bread" by Christa Parrish. I want you to read an excerpt from the book that made me go off on this rant. All you really need to know is that this is spoken from the point of view of Liesl, the owner of a bread shop called Wild Rise.

It began in high school, when our Key Club collected food for a local pantry. We went out Halloween night, and instead of gathering candy we asked for canned goods and brought a van-load back to the school cafeteria. We stacked the food on a table, organizing it as best as our hormone-saturated brains could manage - pasta and sauces here, other noodles next, soups, canned meats, rice, vegetables, the pickles and strange items on the end. I took a jar of blue-cheese-stuffed Greek olives from one of the bags, the dust on the lid so thick it was sticky. I couldn't blow it off, finding instead a box of Kleenex and scrubbing the top before adding it to the tower of beets and gherkins and mincemeat filling.

It bothered me for days, and I grappled with my feelings, the idea that someone would use a food donation to rid the pantry of disliked or never-used food. I mentioned it to Jennie, who said, "Maybe they just thought someone else would want them. There are people out there who really like green olives. Or maybe that was all they had to give."

I knew it was true. Some old man on a fixed income who adores olives but couldn't afford them would feast on them in his senior apartment, picking them straight out of the jar with his fingers and squeezing the cheese onto his tongue before squishing the olive in his mouth. He'd drink the packing oil and watch The Amazing Race, and go to bed full and happy.

Perhaps the person who donated the olives thought this, or for her, the donation was her widow's mite. I imagined she thought nothing, though. Simply saw the jar hiding at the back of their pantry, some Secret Santa gift from the office holiday party two, oh wait, three years ago, and dropped the olives into the bag with the extra package of bread stuffing from Thanksgiving, the four-for-a-dollar can of creamed corn, and a box of Rice-A-Roni that has yet to be eaten because she accidentally grabbed the wrong flavor.

Do everything as if unto the Lord. Offer up everything as if for the Lord, including jars of olives to the food pantry. Or leftover loaves of bread. Years later, that's finally how I make sense of it, where it settles out for me. If Jesus knocks on my door today, will I rummage through my home and give him the food I don't like, the outgrown jacket with stains and a broken zipper, the dirty Crock-pot in the basement, the one with the chipped lid and the mice nesting inside I've yet to find time to toss into the Salvation Army's dumpster?

Whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.

So I pack the bread in bags, like I will for any paying customer. I don't send burnt loaves or stale loaves [to the local food pantry] or any kitchen experiment I don't believe is quality enough to sell. I will not give to the least of these anything I will not offer to my Lord, should he walk into Wild Rise one afternoon and ask for a little something to eat.

Saturday, Part 2

Okay, so after an incredible morning making a delivery for Fed By Faith, I raced home to pick up the rest of the crew (Stephen and Jenn) so we could go to church.

A couple of months ago the kids from our church school wanted to do something to help a local kid with cancer. The idea was that people would raise money to get their head shaved (once you raised $300 you were going bald!). So people in the church started volunteering and the money started coming in:



Note: All of these people made their goal with just a couple of exceptions - a couple backed out early in the race and one teen girl's dad talked her out of shaving her head. Everyone else met the goal even though the chart wasn't updated in this picture.

Unfortunately, after we picked a family and child, within just a few days of picking her, the child passed away. At 9 years old. It was incredibly sad, but also I think it made us realize how important this was to do - to support a family and hopefully help pay off some of their bills to make their load a little lighter. So we picked a new family - the Shaws. Ryan Shaw is three years old and has a tumor in his chest that doctors say they have never seen in a child his age. We found out last night that it has spread to his lymph nodes. And yet, there is always hope!!

Saturday was the big day for head shaving. We spent the first two hours eating, playing games, getting faces painted, and meeting the entire Shaw family who came to meet the people from our church. Also, a few of them got shaved. :) A band comprised of guys from our church also played. Their name is Caught Up and they rock! They were a bit less hairy after the shaving as you will see in later pictures!

This is how we occupied ourselves before the shaving ceremony:

The little boy in green is Ryan Shaw:

At 1:00 the shaving began. We had 16 people from church getting shaved plus people from the Shaw family.

These are the ladies from church who volunteered their heads and Ryan - their inspiration!

This is the before picture:

It begins with Ryan's family members and our preacher:

Then came the rest of our church members one by one:

The new, bald Caught Up!

Got this picture from Cindy. We had to leave early (why? You'll have to read my next post - Saturday, Part 3!) and we missed the last five or six shavees.

Here is a short clip of Caught Up playing:



All in all we raised around $6000 for the family. I really hope that helps them some with bills. The father was actually just laid off from his job for taking so much time off which makes their situation even tougher. I'm so thankful we were able to do something like this for a family in the community. Maybe this can become an annual event? Will the ladies do it again so soon? We'll have to see.....