You Blessed the Christmas Stockings Off Our Community!
We pray that each of you is having a blessed Christmas season! It's my favorite time of the year and I wish it lasted longer. This season has been extra special for me and Emily with Max turning two and the birth of baby Ava. It is amazing to see little children moved with awe and wonder in all the celebration. That's why we made sure each child in our community had that same Christmas experience.
For many of us the best part of Christmas is being with family. But imagine if you never had your Christmas dreams come true? Getting just one or two gifts is a stretch for many families in our community.
As we grow wiser–a kinder way of saying older–Emily and I love blessing people with their Christmas dream. Throughout 2021 we kept tabs on people in our community that could use an extra special blessing at Christmas. We got to know 6 families with a combined 18 children. Many times people are only focused on getting a few gifts for the kids, but we also wanted to bless the parents. Over the years, we noticed that moms get gift cards to use for kids, but ended up needing to use the money for food or household supplies.
This year we were intentional to bless each sponsored family with a large amount of basic household supplies like bathroom tissue, detergents, and all sorts of hygiene items and cleaning supplies. We delivered grocery gift cards plus a very special gift for moms.
I sat with each mom and when I asked what would bless them, they all said the same thing: “Mr John, we don't want anything, we just want our kids to have a great Christmas”. To which I would reply with the same thing: “We are going to bless your kids, but we are going to bless you too.”
One Mom wanted a spa day, another a laptop, and other requests. The outcome? We blessed 6 families with over 100 gifts. We had a few families sponsor, shop, wrap and deliver all the gifts requested. Other gifts were purchased off Amazon and we had the pleasure of meeting and giving the gift of Christmas to so many children that live right in our community!
One family reached out on the Sunday before Christmas saying they had plans to get gifts, but it all fell apart, can we help? And yes we could. That is what we do–we position Greenhouse Project to help, whether it’s with food outreach, addiction support, homework club, community clean up or Sunday church… people know they can reach out in tough times and get support.
The most special part of this Christmas?
Each of the families that received gifts talked about growing closer with God. See, it's not just supplies. We actually care about our neighbors and share the message of Jesus Christ. So many people are hurt and know that they need to connect with God. This is what we share: The Creator became the Creation. Jesus was born to die, to take the penalty of sin, then rise to defeat death. Jesus did this so we might have unbroken, eternal fellowship with Him. That is why our team is here, to not only help the broken, but to see the gospel of Jesus Christ transform people. We hope these families will come worship with us, if not we will be reaching out weekly to connect.
Thank you for making this Christmas special for each of the families, but also our family as well. Check out our latest Sunday message on youtube and visit us on a Sunday to catch a real glimpse of Jesus impacting our community!
God bless you and again, Merry Christmas!
