Let's Say Thanks

Xerox is sponsoring a program to allow you the opportunity to send a free printed postcard to US military personnel stationed overseas showing your support and appreciation for their service to our country.

If you go to this website, http://www.letssaythanks.com/, you can pick out a Thank You card, Xerox will print it, and it will be sent to a soldier that is currently serving in Iraq. You can't designate who gets the card, but it will go to some member of the armed services.

With the Christmas season upon us, these people really need the extra support and acknowledgment from us. They're a long way from family and friends, and your message of thanks will certainly make them feel closer to home.

It is FREE, it only takes a second, and it will mean so much to these folks who are so far away from their friends and family.

Giving

A couple weeks ago, my mom let me know about a co-worker of hers that had injured her foot and would be unable to work for the next several weeks. This was very distressing to her, as her coworker is a single mom with two young kids, and there is no support from the father. I sent an email out to the guys in my life group, and they responded with almost $100 to help provide for them. In a prior weekend, our students had a talk on giving, and they donated $160.00. They were given 3 options to put the money towards, and the nearly unanimous choice was this mother and her two kids.

Today some of the adult volunteers took some of the students to Target to shop for the family they adopted. The kids had so much fun picking out gifts for people that they had not met, it was an amazing thing to see. They're bickering back and forth over the merits of a robot vs. a fire truck, or whether a Transformer puzzle is better than a board game. I was soundly corrected by one of the students for suggesting maybe picking out something educational. My bad... ;)

Joy. There was Joy there. Relational giving - giving a gift that means more than the latest gizmo. These kids not only gave their money, they gave the gift of love and hope to a single mom who was facing having to tell her kids that Santa might not show up this year. We hope to deliver the presents, along with a a Kroger gift card this Saturday. This should be an amazing display of God's love for all of us.

the gods aren't angry

Friday night I went with a bunch of awesome guys to check out Rob Bell's current speaking tour, the gods aren't angry. It was my first time seeing him speak, but I've been a fan of the Nooma videos and I've read both of his books.

You can see a synopsis of the talk here, my limited recollection wouldn't do it justice. The time spent roadtripping with the guys was just as relevant to me as the talk was. I love stuff like that, building bonds, iron sharpening iron.

The biggest thing I got out of the talk came at the end. Rob wound the talk down by sharing stories of people he's spoken with in the course of his ministry. Stories of amazing grace and incredible pain, of people being Christ on display and helping to heal this out-of-control world. He ended by saying "May you remember God is Love". God is love.