Learning to Serve God by Serving Others

Doing service projects is an important part of who our family is, and one we are doing again this year is delivering food and gifts to families in need on Christmas Eve so they can have a Christmas dinner with their family.  A couple weeks ago we dropped off some food and other items requested by City Union Mission, and then their volunteers work to put together packages for each qualifying recipient.  Each one gets a turkey (it got cut off in the picture), a box of food, and some Christmas gifts.  So today we arrived at the Mission to collect the items to take to two different families.  Everything is already packaged, boxed, or wrapped, so we just need to deliver it to the families.  They gave us the addresses, and then we drove to each house to meet them and deliver everything.  We are welcome to stay as little or as long as is appropriate or desired, then say a prayer with the family if they are okay with it, and then we leave.  The first house was a Hispanic woman who had two little boys a little older than Joshua, and they had a new litter of adorable baby chihuahuas.  I was worried I was accidentally going to step on one and crush it, but I barely avoided causing that pre-Christmas heartbreak.  The second family had a baby who was a few months old, and they didn't have a car seat for him, so that's what the big box is in the picture.  They were another sweet family, and it was a pleasant experience.  This is somewhat of a stepping-out-in-faith service project for us, as we go into very poor neighborhoods and into houses of people we don't know (all recipients are heavily vetted by the Mission, so there is almost no actual risk to us), which can be uncomfortable since they are strangers, and sometimes the recipients feel ashamed of their houses or situations.  But we believe Christ calls us all to serve others, which is an important pillar of what Meghan and I want our family to be and do.  So it helps us to continue to teach our children that this is something we value and that is important to us and to God, and it also helps us grow in our own faith by stepping outside of our comfort zone to do it.