Let me tell you about MY CHURCH!

We're small. 20, maybe 25 for Sunday School. 40, maybe 50 for preaching service. We have fun. We study. We sing. Sometimes we cry. Something else we do, we give. We support missions. And God blesses. During covid, we got pretty slim. We lost some members. We kept going though. I think our missions had a part in bringing us back, but I’m a little biased. About ten years ago my oldest daughter, a teenager then, asked if we could do Operation Christmas Child at church. I didn't really know what it was back then, but we presented the idea. All my kids pitched in. My church got on board. My kids still take part. So does my church. It spreads. It puts down roots. It grows. We didn't really know what we were doing, but that year we collected 17 boxes, put them in the back of our car and delivered them to the local distribution point. The next year we did more. Then more. Then more. Now, we have monthly "items" that we collect throughout the year, contests, fundraisers. Sometimes we’re collecting school supplies, sometimes hygiene items, cups, bowls, crayons etc . We have members who bring in bags of stuff almost every week. That gets me to this past week. We've just finished up our "contest" for the toys and filler items for this year. It lasted a little over a month. We “volunteered” a die hard Auburn fan and a die hard Bama fan. The names will be left out to protect the innocent. Whichever side brought the largest number of items was the winner. The "loser" had to wear the opposite team's colors. And we threw in a gaudy colored wig to make it even more fun. As the weeks progressed, we updated the count, showed OCC videos, and had a lot of fun. My spiritual gift is an interesting one. I "stir the pot" and, so I did! Always asking for more, prodding the teams, never knowing when to stop and asking for more more more. Right up until the last minute it was so close. Then I sorta cheated (don’t tell anyone).... I asked a friend of mine to donate. A few days later a check shows up. We bought just over 200 small cloth backpacks. I put a few in each side's collection of items. Then I stood up and announced that "it was a tie"! What happened?? On Sunday afternoon we had a cookout at a members lake lot (we have some kind and generous members). After the ice cream, our die hard Bama fan put on the Au T-shirt and blue wig. Our die hard Au fan put on the Bama T-shirt and red wig. We laughed, joked, took a couple pictures. Both confessed they had NEVER worn those colors. NEVER. Wow!! Do you know why they did it? Because that's the kind of Church we are. In the last 10+ years we have packed and shipped thousands of shoeboxes. Thousands. And we're not stopping now. It's not the stuff we put in them that matters, although we stuff them to the gills. It's hope. It's faith. It's love. It’s planting seeds. This has become my family's cause. We push a little too hard. We go a little overboard. There is a reason, for me anyway, even though I didn't know when it started that first year. Then several years later we were introduced to three little sisters. Scared. Unsure. Hungry. I'll never forget the first night after we had pizza and they noticed some oranges on the counter. The look in her eyes when she asked for one. I had really never considered how many kids in this world have nothing. I mean absolutely nothing. These became my first three "instant" grandkids. Now there's four. And two more on the way! And maybe more to come!!!! A dozen seems like a good number, don't you think? I heard a quote today, "Do you want to make God laugh? Tell him your plans." 17 boxes. How about 170? Maybe 1,700. I can't wait till we send our 17,000th box! Thank you TB and DN. You know who you are .... Thanks to my wife and kids. Thanks to all of you who organize, plan, buy, pack boxes, deliver. Thank you MVBC. We’re just getting warmed up. If your church isn’t like mine, let me tell you where to get started. There is a mirror over your bathroom sink. Start there.

MP