No apologies for not blogging these last several months. We have been having fun. My last post was a video trying not only to brighten your spirits, but also to brighten my own. October was brutal for Faithbridge Church. We expected attendance numbers to dip after the tourist season here at the lake, but we didn’t expect it to be cut in half. We started to question, pull data, and make excuses.
Then November came. Oh my, where did they all come from. And not just the ones coming to “check us out.” People came that like what they saw and wanting to go deeper in to what are vision stands for. New contributors were added weekly. People bringing friends and spreading the news about Faithbridge Church.
In November, we supplied Thanksgiving Dinner for 15 families. The groceries signup was filled after the first Sunday it was announced. A far cry from last year when we had to take money out of the budget to buy groceries for each basket. Then in December, we did it again, but we also provide a weeks worth of groceries to feed the family while school was out.
During this time we started talks with an organization named FeedtheChildren.org. We decided to set our Christmas Offering goal at $5000. If we were to reach this goal, it would purchase about 75% of a semi-truck full of food. Feed the Children was founded in 1979 by Larry and Frances Jones, the mission of Feed The Children is to deliver food, medicine, clothing and other necessities to families who lack these essentials due to famine, war, poverty or natural disaster. Since their founding, Feed The Children has shipped food and relief supplies and other essentials to children and their families in all 50 states and 119 countries, supplementing almost 800,000 meals each day.
We became a truck sponsor on December 15. Truck sponsorship allows Faithbridge Church to sponsor a truckload of food, personal care items and other necessities to children and families in need. Each truck sponsorship delivers 400 boxes of food, 400 boxes of personal care items, and 400 boxes of Avon products. The food, hygiene and Avon boxes are individually packaged for convenient distribution and contain a wide variety of essential items such as canned vegetables, pasta, soup, lotion, soap, etc. We need Individuals, businesses, schools and other community groups to partner with us. After the Christmas offering goal of $5000 we are asking to community to make up the rest of the $8,100, that underwrites the cost of transportation for an entire semi-truck of pre-boxed product and see our community changed for the better. I’ll come back to this later.
Another overwhelming thing, was that we were overran with cookies. Last year one of our members, E.G., thought about sending cookies to all the police stations, Sherif post, EMT and fire stations, and the hospital to spread cheer to all that have to work Christmas. This year, after 26 people baked 3-5 dozen each we added nursing homes and the toll booths on the toll bridge. It was wonderful to see people get involved in this outreach and we delivered the cookies after the Christmas Eve Service.
Which brings be to Christmas Eve. Last year our Christmas Eve service was our “come and see”. Now that we opened in May we had no idea what to do and how many people would show up. To find out what we did go to www.faithbridgelakechurch.com. It was a great and awesome experience that 160 people enjoyed. During the service we took an offering for our Christmas offering. This brings us back to the Feed the Children Food Truck.
With still one more Sunday to collect on the Christmas offering we have collected $6100. Once again I was brought to tears. God is good and he is doing something with Faithbridge Church in the Lake Community. I wonder what 2010 will be like. Thank God and Thanks to all!
