December 2009 Project

Project ARK Day of Giving- Saturday, December 19, 2009

10am- 15 youth met at The Hut. What a great representation from our high school youth! They once again gave up a full day to give to others. We prepared 100 gift bags for Hospice. Hospice staff will deliver these gift bags to their patients. Each bag was filled with five different travel-sized toiletry itemschap stick, hand lotion , candy, etc. (all 500 toiletry items donated from Chattem Drugs/ candy donated by Sathers Candy Distributors). Many thanks to those two companies! We also prepared 100 gift bas for the elderly residents at the Mary Walker Towers downtown. Each of those bags was filled with cookies, fruit, snacks, candy, a tree ornament, and a note from Project ARK letting them know who we are and why we do what we do. We also made a quick trip to the grocery store to purchase enough food to fill nine large food boxes. Each box was filled with meat, fresh fruit and vegetables, canned vegetables, pasta, rice, eggs, a note about ARK (in Spanish) and other goodies.

12noon- We delivered the gift bags to every resident at Mary Walker Towers and visited with many of them.

1:00-3:00- After we left Mary Walker Towers, we delivered the food boxes door to door to nine families in the Highland Park neighborhood around the St. Andrews Center.

3:00-4:00 Lunch

6:00- We met back at The Hut and went Christmas Caroling to six senior members of the church. We met at Elizabeth Haynes' house afterwards for a big hot dog and chili dinner.

This was a long day but well worth it! It was a day of serving Christ by serving His people. I pray that the experiences from today will help the youth begin to understand that our faith is not just about us or our inner peace. Days like today make the gospel come to life. Days like today give purpose and meaning to "the kingdom." Days like today make for an authentic demonstration of the love of God. We also learned that we could all use some Spanish lessons. Thank God for Grant and his ability to communicate in Spanish. The families knew we were coming. But it helped a lot to communicate, rather than just stand on their front porch holding a box of food and grinning.

We greatly appreciate everyone who helped to make this a wonderful day of service and worship!