advent: day 8

i'll be honest right off the bat - i stole this idea from my good friend kelly. she has a heart for others unlike anyone i've ever met and i have loved this idea since she first talked about it. i can't wait until kiah is old enough to help and understand what we're doing. on to our activity!

today's activity was putting together bags for the homeless. i headed to costco and grabbed some socks and protein-type bars, baked some chocolate ship cookie goodness, and printed off cardstock with scriptures on them. the plan is to put them in the car to have them available to hand out when you see those people at the freeway offramps. next year i hope to be a little more on top of this particular activity and will budget better so that i can include a $5 gift card to mcdonalds and a crocheted beanie. the beanies may still make an appearance in a few of these, as i suspect we will not give all of them out this holiday season. don't know, maybe we will!

almost ready to go!

i think i mentioned last sunday's sermon at church was a video on the history of mars hill...what i did not mention was that really the message was on giving. eric and i both feel called to be generous and have been working lately to give more than we have in the past. this includes our time, talent, and treasure. time - serving both at church and in other ways (like the gospel mission). talent - for me this would be the gift of hospitality, which right now means hosting our community group. treasure - money. i feel God challenging us to grow in all three areas. and it is good, because He is good. we are sensitive to the fact that God has blessed us immensely and he calls us to steward those blessings well. we take that job very seriously and hope to teach our child(ren) how to do that as well. this is one way we can tangibly show them how to be generous and care for the poor.

"but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."  romans 5:8