Faith in Action

Each year our church chooses one Sunday on which none of us go to church.  Instead, we go out into our community and try to BE the church.  We find projects with which we can make a difference for someone or some group in our community.  It is usually a great day of working together and hoping others "get it."
Being quite pregnant and having a 3-year-old my work options were quite limited this year.  So, I stayed back with a handful of others, and the children, to make halloween decorations to send overseas.  Now, it doesn't seem like much, I know.  Really, they are fighting a war, do the soldiers really care about decorating for halloween??  Probably not.  But, we did need something we could do with the children in an attempt to make the day "real" and understandable to them.  So, full speed ahead.  We made spiders, paper candy corn streamers, bats and cats, and even some turkey placemats, just for good measure.  The children had a wonderful time and were well entertained while many of their parents were working projects around town.
On our way home, Collin noted that we did not sing any songs at church, nor did we go to Sunday School and Pastor Rick didn't speak.  So, I began to explain, as best I could in 3-year-old lingo, what the purpose of church was for that day.  I asked Collin if he knew why we go to church in the first place, he responded it's because of Jesus.  I thought that was good enough.  So, I told him that Jesus wants us to do things to help other people, it's part of believing in him and doing what he asks.  I told him that Jesus spent his whole life doing things for other people.  At this point I just asked him what we had done for other people that day.  His response, "We made decorations for the guys with daddy so it's like our house, and that will make them happy."  Yes, my child it will. 
Even a 3-year-old gets it.  He knows he will not get anything in return.  He knows he will not even know if the "guys" actually received them or not and he is perfectly content having done something nice for someone else.  There truly is wisdom in youth.

    Since we were helping with the crafts there are no pictures of the children actually working.  However, we were able to get this shot of them in front of the fire truck.  As one of our projects the church provided lunch for first responders in our area.  The firefighters were kind of enough to let the children explore the truck before they came in for lunch.  Thanks guys!!