Friesencold

This year for Christmas, we wanted to do something different than we’d ever done before.

TJ and I remember so clearly one of Tim Sutherland’s messages at church last year about how he wants his two boys to leave home knowing that Christmas is about serving the poor, and that is what we want for Bauer and Cash (and ourselves, too!). For a few months prior to Christmas, our small group had been looking for a place to serve people in need on Christmas Day. We figured there was no better way to get the message across to our children that Christmas is not about getting stuff than to actually go out on Christmas Day and do something to help others.

We had the fabulous opportunity to partner with New Community Ministries, and after many hours of planning and preparation, we were able to do just what we envisioned our Christmas Day would look like, both for us and for those being served.  Not only did we involve our small group but we also emailed a bunch of our friends, many of whom were eager to get in on the action too.

Volunteers representing over 30 different families prepared food, purchased turkeys and hams, collected non-perishable food, donated toys and gift cards, collected boxes of fresh fruit and vegetables, and gave it all away to families living in poverty or in severe crisis situations (cancer, risk of losing home). Each “Secret Santa” family was assigned a child or children to purchase for. Nine of the families who purchased gifts or donated food were able to take part in making the deliveries on Christmas Day.

What a great day we had!

We met at COMMUNITY at 10 am to sort the toys and non-perishable food into boxes for each family. Then we had a group prayer, loaded the “Santa Bus” and vans, and were off by 11 am. We did a big loop from Naperville to Plainfield and back, making 6 stops in all, and delivering food and gifts to ten different families. We arrived back to the church around 3:30 pm with some tired kids, but it was definitely worth it!

One of the most touching stops was at a motel in Plainfield, where five of the families we served live. These families were so grateful to receive all the gifts and food. A single mom who has a learning disability and is unable to work, was so happy she started crying when she was given a prepaid cell phone. There were tears and hugs and laughs and to top it all off, it started snowing these huge picture-perfect Christmas snowflakes right as we were all standing outside delivering everything to them. I personally felt like they were giving me a gift by letting me experience the joy of reaching out and being in a place I imagine Jesus would want to be on Christmas Day.

Here we are sorting all the toys and non-perishable food items into boxes. These would soon be loaded on the bus to go along with the prepared Christmas dinners to be given to each family.

Santa Claus (a.k.a. the likable Henry Heller) was very well-received by all the children, including our own kids, at the different stops.  That’s Bauer in the gray coat on the left of Santa.

Santa handed out gifts to the young kids and teenagers alike.

We were able to pray for some of the families after giving them their gifts and boxes of food.

Here we are at the motel just before the snow began to fall. Tears of joy may have already begun falling at this point.

Here’s one of the families our family helped to buy for. It was great having our kids give to kids just like them.

We took a group photo after our last stop. Some of the families making deliveries had to leave before we got to all the stops, so next year, we should take the group picture after our first stop!

We’re on the bus, heading back to our starting point. Tired baby, happy Mom.

Thank you, God, for such a wonderful day. We are so rich with friends and so blessed that we were able to spend the day with them doing something for others. May this be only the beginning for us.

First, Cash:

Here is Cash’s favorite pasttime lately….climbing back and forth, and back and forth, between the black chair and the flower chair. Bauer got him started at this game and now the two of them love to clown around together doing it.

Next, more cash:

TJ and I have been taking a class at our church called “Raising Financially Healthy Kids,” and we have recently learned about starting an allowance with Bauer. This week is our first week to try it. We have created a list of 4 chores since Bauer is 4 years old. He will have to do some of them more than once a week for a total of 8 chores. Each chore will be worth 50 cents. The chores are as follows:

1. Help set table – 3x
2. Help clear table – 2x
3. Put away laundry – 2x
4. Spray and wash full-length mirror – 1x (Bauer is going to love this chore!)

Bauer has seemed so eager already to do his chores that we may end up needing to add more to the list. I didn’t want to push it too much at first, and make it seem like he had to help with everything every day. Some days it is just easier for me to set the table instead of interrupting Bauer and Cash’s playtime with TJ after work while I’m preparing dinner. But for now, it’s going to be 8 chores a week. I made a little chore chart for the fridge with the appropriate number of boxes beside each chore, and Bauer gets to put a “Great Job” or “Way to Go” sticker on the chart after he does any of his chores during the course of the week.

At the end of the week, we will pay Bauer $4.00 for completing all the chores. The $4 will go 4 ways: $1 to tithe, $1 to give, $1 to save, and $1 to spend.

The TITHE will be money Bauer gets to take to his class at church to give back to God.

The GIVE will be money that Bauer can use to buy things for others in need. Our church recently started collecting food pantry items for a center that distributes among the poor and homeless in a neighboring town. Each month now, on the first weekend of the month, everyone is encouraged to bring back their reusable yellow totes filled with items from the list printed on the bag itself (talk about a great idea!) and then drop their items in the big yellow bins just inside each entrance of the church. We explained to Bauer earlier this month that this is what the yellow bag is for, and he helped us collect some food and toiletry items from around our house to put in the bag. Next month, though, I’m going to encourage Bauer to use some of his GIVE money to pick out a couple items from the grocery store that he would like to put in the bag. Or if he thinks of a different way he’d like to give, I’m going to encourage that too.

The SAVE money will be money that will go in the bank, or possibly into his blue piggy bank for future transfer to the bank.

The SPEND money will be money that Bauer can use to buy the toys/books/junk that he sees and wants. He will get $1 a week for this, so I’m not sure if it’s going to be hard for him to wait to save up. His big thing now is that if he sees a toy, and we suggest he could use some of his money to buy it, he is just worried whether the toy will still be there later. We will have to see how this plays out.

This morning, we created 4 jars for Bauer to use for his 4 “accounts.” So here is the other cash I was talking about:

Bauer wrote all the letters himself, except for the S in Spend which he wanted me to make in dots so he could trace. After he did that S, though, he was fine doing the S in Save all by himself.

On Sunday night, TJ and I had the opportunity to share some thoughts on generosity at the CCC All-Staff BBQ. A couple people who were not in attendance have expressed interest in knowing what we shared, so I decided to do a little write-up for them and for other interested parties.

TJ opened by expressing our heartfelt gratitude and excitement about being a part of a church that encourages generosity in us by being a generous church itself and by giving us more and more opportunities to give.  He then shared a few of the “bigger” ways we have been generous during the past year, with specific emphasis on opportunities that have arisen within the context of our small group. As a group we have been able to help buy a family a vehicle; help pay rent for a group member’s brother who was in the hospital for several months and lost his job but still had a family to support; support a group member’s coworker whose daughter is serving in Afghanistan; and most recently help pay rent for a church attender who serves on the videocast team and who hasn’t been able to cover basic needs due to the un-smiley face of the economy.

After a little more big-picture talk, I went into the details when it was my turn to share because I love details. I talked about two examples of smaller forms of generosity, one from a few months ago and one from the other day.

The few-months-ago example occurred during a trip to Whole Foods back in the spring. I was in there to pick up a few things and had brought along a coupon for $10 off any $50 purchase. I wasn’t really needing enough stuff to add up to $50 but let’s be honest, it’s not that hard to spend $50 in Whole Paycheck. At the same time I was figuring in my mind what additional things I could buy to get up to $50, I thought of a good friend of mine who has to shop at Whole Foods a lot more frequently than I do due to some special dietary needs of her daughter. And I thought of how I could give the coupon to her and it would probably benefit her a lot more than it would me. But then I thought of how I wanted the coupon for myself. I had one of those moments of crisis just then, and what does a woman do in a moment of crisis? She speed-dials her husband. I stopped right in the middle of Whole Foods and called TJ, but he didn’t answer (the small crowd chuckled at this point, where were you TJ?)

God must have had him not answer because God wanted to be the voice to speak to me instead. I had this thought come into my mind just then – If you err on the side of being generous, it will never be the wrong choice. I had my answer just as plain as day, and as simple as give and you won’t be wrong. So I got out of the store without spending a small fortune that day, mailed the coupon to my friend, and took away a line of thinking that has stuck with me ever since.

The more recent example was just last week, one day when both kids were napping and I was sitting on the couch thinking. That’s what I like to do when the kids are asleep. I sit there and look out the window and watch the cars and the neighbors and think about stuff. I read my Bible sometimes and I journal sometimes, but always I think.

That particular day I was looking around our living room at our two big bookshelves from IKEA that are filled with books, more books than any two people could read or need. I thought about how much we have, not just books, but in other areas too. I thought about our pantry and how at any time of day or night I can go into the kitchen and get whatever I want to eat without a second thought. I go to the grocery store a couple times a week at least and buy things we like and keep our fridge and pantry stocked so that when we’re hungry, we are taken care of. And then I thought of the person we know who has been relying on a food pantry for help and who can’t just go out to eat whenever he wants or buy what he prefers at the grocery store. And then, finally then, I had the so-not-novel, but so-this-is-my-moment thought, This isn’t right. You know how we each have our moments where the thing we’ve heard a thousand times becomes the one time we really hear it? And that was it for me. This isn’t right that I can have whatever I want to eat all the time and this other person is going without basic things. And now what am I going to do about it?

This little occurrence in my otherwise uneventful day opened up a whole new dialogue between TJ and myself when he came home from work. We talked about the idea of sacrifice, and how we could sacrifice things we like, specifically in the category of groceries since that is an area that is a bit more flexible than say rent or electricity, in order to have more money to give away to people who are not as blessed (materially) as we are.

I thought first of how we could garden more in order to have less vegetables to buy. Now I’m not trying to say everyone should garden (although TJ added in here, yes, we are!), but that for me, gardening would be one answer to not spend as much money at the grocery store, and still get to eat veggies aplenty.

My second somewhat silly yet somewhat serious example was about the salsa we buy at Trader Joe’s. It’s the Smoky, Spicy Peach Salsa and it’s some kind of good. Has anybody out there tried it? (And I got a few nods.) Well those little jars are $2.29 a piece. And they’re little. Like probably 10 of them would add up to the big honking jar of Costco salsa which is only $4.99. It’s mango, not peach, though. But do we have to be so particular? Are we allowed to be so particular? Some people don’t have money to buy their own food and I’m having to always have my peach salsa in the fridge just in case on some particular night I feel like chips, guac, and salsa. So this little area, the little jars of peach salsa, is something where we can sacrifice. I think we can still buy it from time to time as a treat, but it doesn’t have to be our everyday salsa. I can be okay with the mango salsa from Costco, or no salsa at all for that matter.

After the salsa talk, I went on to talk about how some of the financial giving we’ve done in the past year has been from TJ’s income, while some has been from the money we have in savings that is from the sale of our house in Orlando. When we sold our house, we put that money in savings to go toward buying our next house. We’ve been renting ever since, so that money has been sitting there and has come in quite handy to allow us to give generously to some things we may not have been able to otherwise. I am very thankful we have that extra money so that we can give more, but at the same time, I feel like it’s easy to view that money in savings as out there somewhere and not very connected to our daily standard of living. I think the recent realization about sacrifice has brought me to ask myself and to ask TJ, does it count if it costs us nothing? It doesn’t technically cost us nothing when we give from savings but it kind of feels that way. And I don’t like the way that feels.

I want my giving to cost me something. I want to not eat peach salsa and know that because I’m going without, someone else is going with.

The other thing I realized through mine and TJ’s dialoguing over sacrifice and salsa was that a lot of people who are not Christ followers would probably give in very similar ways as how we have given. The “big” and the “small” things we talked about are not all that uncommon, and I think there are plenty of people who, just out of the goodness of their hearts, would help out a neighbor or a friend who couldn’t pay their rent. This last realization made me feel challenged yet again, not just to sacrifice, but to be generous in ways that are not normal. I want mine and TJ’s giving to make people say That’s not normal. Yeah, maybe I’d help out my neighbor who needs help with their car repairs, but give them my car? That’s not normal. I think that is what the world needs to see from us who are Christ followers. Not just normal giving, but big (call ‘em radical if you want) sacrifices that reflect back on the big God we are following.

In closing, I shared about how I feel thankful that what is also happening for me and TJ right now is that we are seeing the same things differently than we did even a few months ago. For example, at the beginning of the summer, we canceled our cable because our shows were over and we didn’t think we would need to be watching much TV this summer. We did that as a way to save money, but never did we talk of saving that money in order to give it to someone else. Now, though, that is what I’m thinking. When I give up something, it’s so that someone else can receive. It’s not so that I can feel good about myself for being good at saving.

I finished up my sharing with a quote from C.S. Lewis that I heard years ago and have never been able to forget. When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased. Let me say it again. When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased. It doesn’t make sense that when we give more and sacrifice more, we will feel our lives expand and we will feel so rich. God says we are blessed when we give and God is not one to tell a story. Why would we not give? And that’s about all I had to say.

TJ wrapped up with a few more good thoughts: like for someone to receive, someone has to give; for someone to be fed, someone has to provide food; if someone somewhere benefits, then someone somewhere paid something. That’s some good truth being told. TJ also reminded us all that if we live in America, we are rich. Not just rich. Filthy rich. And that’s taking into account the fact that we personally make less than the median income in America. Rich. Rich. Rich. Which is not the norm when you consider all the people in the world. 20% of the world lives on $1.00 a day and 50% of the world lives on $2.00 a day. And we spend that much on the smoothies I make every morning. Just a little something, I mean a big something, to think about.