Here's Your Sign

Wow it's been a long time since I have updated this!! SOOO much has happened since October...In November, we started thinking about what we could do for Christmas. I wanted to make sure that all of the children that came were able to get a gift. At first, I was going to give them a stocking with goodies in it but that just didn't seem like that was enough. After some discussion, we decided to let families sign up and put how many children they had and their ages and we would buy them one thing. We ended up having around 30 children sign up!! Now what was I going to do?? Our money would never stretch that far and we still had to feed them. Then it hit me one morning...what about the girls at work "adopting" the children and that way we wouldn't have to deplete our funds!! Boy did they ever step up!!! They bought and bought and bought for those kids! Each child had one gift under the Christmas tree that Santa personally handed to them and then they had a bag full of gifts for the family to take home and do what they wanted to with. We also read the Christmas story to them to make sure they knew the real reason for the season. The party was awesome and I could not have asked for a better turnout!! We had it on a Saturday so that the parents and grandparents could come. The only thing different for next Christmas is we are going to have to run the families thru and make sure they have not signed up for Christmas with any other organization. We would have done that this time but I never thought we would have the turnout we did!!!

We have continued to serve every Monday. Attendance dropped for a few weeks after the first of the year. This was very discouraging for me but we contributed it to the cold weather we were having. Attendance is back up now to 25-30 people eating in and sometimes just as many take-outs. We also applied for special project funds thru the Etowah Baptist Association and were awarded $250 each quarter!!

The last couple of weeks, I have to admit I have been asking God and wondering if I am still supposed to be doing this ministry. I don't know why. Frustration, tired, wondering if we are really making a difference or wasting our time, has our time come that we have served our purpose with this ministry....It really had me down and thinking a lot about it. My prayer was
for God to show me a sign to let me know that I am still doing what I am supposed to be doing. This past Sunday, a church member gave me a book titled, "Same Kind of Different As Me" which is about a lady that has a passion for helping homeless people and making a difference in people's lives. She and another lady told me when they read the book, they thought about me. Then last night, a lady from the EBA called me. She said there is a local church that wanted a couple of people to come and speak about going on mission trips and how it had changed their lives. She said they thought it would be great if I could come and speak about 12 Baskets...I've never been asked to come speak....but of course I am going...

"Here's your sign." - God