Don't Buy Me Any Gifts This Year

I'd rather not receive any gifts this year. Seriously.

God has provided everything we need, and work to cover future needs. For now, we have no unmet material needs. That might not always be true, but this year, it is. And we're grateful.

For this year, I would rather my friends and relatives bought some rice. Or maybe a soccer ball. Or little shoes. Or just some ugali. What would thrill me more than a gift-wrapped box is donation to hungry4HIM Ministry (http://hungry4him.com), which supports the Friends of Christ orphanage in Ahero, Kenya. There are almost 300 orphans at FoC, and little donations go a long way. For example:

• You can provide a 5 lb. bag of rice or beans for about $3.
• You can provide a 5 lb. bag of maize for about $5 (20 lbs. would feed the entire school for one meal).
• You can provide a chicken for $5 or a fish for $3.
• 6 pair of socks cost about $2, and a blanket for $6.
• Toiletries? 15 bars of soap for $3 or 10 toothbrushes for $5.

If you would like to provide a Christmas gift in this way, just write a check to "Hungry4Him", put "Christmas fund" in the memo line, and send it to:

  Hungry4Him Ministry
  427 Airport Road
  Dublin, GA 31021

Hungry4Him is in process of putting together a Christmas "catalog" to promote this kind of giving, but I'm just getting the word out early.

Or, there are many other ministries that have the same kind of fundraiser - giving gifts to their ministries in lieu of giving one another gifts (often times, gifts we really don't need anyway). I encourage everyone to think about this as a gift-giving idea, for whoever you would buy gifts for.

I would love it if this practice eclipsed "Black Friday" in the amount of money raised.

Thanksgiving

I love all the ways that we try to rethink Thanksgiving. Every year, we try ways to make sure that the Thanksgiving holiday is about something more than food and football (as if there was something more than food and football...). We make sure we ask, "What are you thankful for?", remind one another to "Count your blessings," and sometimes, we even ask, "To whom are you so thankful?"

I was recently at an event where I thought someone might ask me to say something about Thanksgiving. Wanting to not be caught speechless (like I too often am), I thought through these kinds of ideas again, but didn't want to sound trite. So, a new question popped into my head - one that I'm trying trying to figure out how to answer.

Given that we are in fact thankful to God for what He's done for us, in this Thanksgiving week my question is this: "How do we express that thanksgiving to God?" If we're aware of our blessings enough to be thankful, how is it exactly that we are to express that gratitude to the One who has blessed us?

Certainly, we can say, "Thanks." And we certainly should. We can verbally, or in quiet prayer, tell God that we are in fact thankful. We can list the things He's done that we're thankful for, and then tell Him we're thankful. Many psalms do exactly that (e.g. Psalm 50).

But is that the extent of it? Is that all that we can do to express our thanksgiving?

We can work on our "attitude of gratitude" - intentionally checking our attitude and make sure that we replace bitterness and demandingness with gratitude. That's certainly a good thing that God must surely appreciate - thankful attitudes among His people. Certainly, a bunch of whiners is less pleasing to Him.

What I really want to explore, though, is how to remember the things that I'm thankful for and give God my thanksgiving by using those things for His purpose and His glory. Take that list that we generate when we count our blessings, and then for each item on the list, be thankful by using that item for God.

Thankful for your health? How will you use that health you're thankful for to serve Him? Thankful for your job? How will you use that job for His glory? Thankful for your family? How will you offer up your family to Him as an act of thanksgiving? Thankful for a car to get you around? How will you use that car to advance God's Kingdom? Thankful for your salvation? How will you use the new life you have in Christ to glorify Him?

The idea is this: We have so much to be thankful for (yes, even the material things). To be deeply thankful for the things God has done for us and given to us, use them for His glory as an act of thanksgiving. Not only to express your thanksgiving, but as an actual act of thankfulness - appreciating God's blessings by the very act of using them for Him.

That, to me, is becoming the idea of Thanksgiving. Yes, we should tell Him we're thankful. Yes, we should have a thankful attitude. I think we show the ultimate gratitude by refusing to hoard God's blessings, but rather use them for His sake.

How to Get Involved

The feedback from Pastor Benard's visit with us has been thrilling. I'm pleased to see such interest in ministry to Kenya. If you missed the luncheon after church, you missed Pastor Benard sharing what God has been doing 5000 miles from here, and answering a lot of good questions.

Some of you may want to find out what you can do to help out. Here's a quick list:

Sponsor: You can sponsor an orphan for $15 / month to provide that child with two meals a day, school supplies, and a new school uniform every year. See http://hungry4him.com to find out more and to sign up.

Read: There is a book about Pastor Benard's life - an amazing story of his own salvation, plus God building in him a vision for an orphan ministry. See http://benardsvision.com or just drop by the church office to get a copy. Every penny or your $15 (or more) donation goes straight into the orphanage.

Build: We have a "Brick by Brick" campaign to raise money for new buildings - more classrooms, dormitories, and so on. You can "sponsor" as many bricks as you want at $2 a piece, which pays for a brick and the related materials and labor. Again, the information is found at http://hungry4him.com .

Multiply: Contribute to the funds to support orphanage teachers and Bible college students. As we support these workers and students, we multiply the effect, since they each are able to touch so many more people. Contact me personally if you'd like to find out more.

Go: Lord willing, I plan on going to Kenya next summer. If you're interested in joining me, let me know as soon as you can. What we do will depend on who goes and what skills we have, but possibilities include: construction, children's ministry, youth ministry, prayer, visitation, and evangelism - the list is fairly endless.

Pray: Add to your prayer list: Pastor Benard and his family, the Friends of Christ orphanages (one in Ahero, one in Wachara), the teachers and pastors of the orphanages, and the Ahero Evangelical School of Theology and its students.

Please let me know how I can help you get more involved.