God Speaks...

I found this note under the chairs & it was from a youngster last Sunday:

Dear Mom,

I know this may sound ridiculous to you but I was wondering if tomorrow at school I could ask people if they want to raise money to buy gifts to send to poor children in 3rd world countrys. After can we talk to my teacher about it?

Love, (name withheld)

The following is from Rick McKinley, whose church started Advent Conspiracy last year:

Because Christ was worshipped we worshipped the Baby in a way we never had before. The kids led the way. Everyone feared they would hate it, but it turned out that they understood it better than the adults. Some children emptied their whole piggy banks the day we took the offering. The Imago Dei Kids bought alpacas for some families in South America. (We had a llama at church that day to show them something close to an alpaca.) Our worship started on Sunday and went all week. Instead of rushing to the malls, families were hanging out at home making gifts. Because God gave us His Son, we in turn were giving of ourselves to others.

There were so many stories it was, and continues to be, somewhat overwhelming. It had a viral effect. The main factor was not the offering, or the meaningful gifts, or the hundreds of people who were helped - it was that everything we were doing pointed us back to The Story - God gave us His Son and we have never been the same.

It does appear that our children will help the lead the way for us to! After Sunday's service one of our teenage girls came forward wanting to pass along many of her old toys onto someone who could use them. Yeah God!

"And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled ‘till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more." Dr. Seuss, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas