Helping Hands is re-established

A couple of weeks later we were in church and the sermon was on helping others- reaching out- and making a difference in others' lives. And how it was done was pretty dramatic.

Two people stood behind the 2 podiums. One at a time they began to read letters from people that had written the church asking for help. They told about one family where the Dad was still unemployed and he was trying to get back on his feet. He was only asking for $100 to get his plumber's helper license.
Another was about a gentleman that was alone since his wife of many years passed. It was hard for him to get out and all he was asking for was someone to visit once in a while, maybe sit on his dock and fish and just talk.
There was the single mother with 4 children. She worked long and hard to provide but when she finally got home there was little time or energy to put together a meal for the family. She was just asking for help.
The stories went on and on. No matter who was listening, there was not a person that no matter their circumstances that could not help someone. If you had no extra money you could spend a few minutes of time driving someone to their chemo treatments or just sitting and talking.
There were wet eyes all over the church. And then there was a call to action. One by one nearly everyone walked forward and dropped a slip of paper into waiting baskets to tell how and who they would like to help.
It was an incredible thing. But then it hit us. Even though we already had a Helping Hands section- we had not given it much thought. It was just part of the whole.
But it didn't start that way. It was a big part of our first neighborhood site.
This does not have to be just every once in a while. Others' needs do not have to wait until there is a call to action. If we make this the focus for the community site - this can be happening every day! Yes, every day!
Now we couldn't wait to point out a part of the community site that we should be featuring and using to change the community - Our Winter Park. - Sure we mentioned it before - but now it could be the focus!
What a great place to live!

It is a go- our church wants to be the Neighborhood Ambassador!

First, sometimes we are the last to know.

Our son is very involved with the Youth Group. He also plays in the contemporary worship band. In fact he is at the church 2-3 times a week. So it was not any wonder that he knew before we did.

One night when he came home he told us how excited both Andy and Chris were about the church being the Neighborhood  Ambassador and they wanted to know what was next. Excited! Wow, this could be great!

So now we are on and it is time to get this going. So I sat down and looked things over to see if there was anything else we needed to do. And I decided we could even make this better for everyone. But first things first. Time to draw out a schedule of what everyone was to do to kick it off right and get a whole community behind this.

We are excited too. This can make a difference.