We are planning to help give out coats/toys/food to the needing .. on Christmas eve. This is a community wide project and my children will be helping too. I am very excited about this.
I shopped the Compassion Catalog and all my children will be honored by giving a gift to the least of these... I can not explain how good this felt to do!
I ordered several things from the Come Together Trading Company. I love this ministry. The founders are Compassion advocates. They are so kind and friendly. They have so much to choose from and all different prices. Knowing that my shopping will make a difference matters so much to me!
We have several neighbors that we will be taking "sweets" to and singing to them. We've been doing this for a few years.
Wyatt & Wesley had some money... from chores and both of them wanted to buy something for the other one. I tried to get them to only spend part of it but they didn't want to. I said "Wesley, Wyatt may not spend his money on you... " and he said "But its ok .. he is my brother and I want to get this for him."
All year long we put our extra change in a jar. At the end of the year we count it up and give it to our Compassion sponsor children as a family gift. Last year we gave to Ucok... our sponsored child from Indonesia. This year we will be giving to Jazzy's family (Alyssa's sponsored child) from the Philippines. We are really excited about this as Jazzy's mom lost her husband and is a single parent to 3.
What are some of things you will be doing this Christmas... to make a difference?
Thanks for allowing me to share~
Sponsor a child today!
Grace~
Teena, it's so encouraging to see God working in your family. Thank you for sharing.
ReplyDeleteWe still do gifts between the 4 of us, but cut WAY back on gifts to our parents and other family. Now we buy gifts from the catalog and give them "tokens" really - pics of the girls, ornaments we made (with pics of the girls, etc.). This was our first year to really cut back in this area.
We will take our violins to a local nursing home next week to play (although we do this every month) - but in December I drag all my students along).
We don't have family coming and we aren't going anywhere so our schedule is open to whatever God might have us do.
I've never ordered from Come Together - my favorite fair trade retailer is Ten Thousand Villages. It's Mennonite in it's roots (which is what I am in my roots too)
Blessings to you my friend!