"Love Winston-Salem" - Day One (Collection and Tour of Samaritan Ministries)

This week our church is serving the community in various ministries through a program our church put together called "Love Winston-Salem" (www.lovewinstonsalem.com). This is how it is described on the website: "Love Winston-Salem is a movement among local Believers to impact our city for the cause of Christ. Knowing that we are not in Winston-Salem by accident, it is our desire to represent Christ well. We want to be aware of the realities of our city and actively engaged in bringing hope to our community through Jesus Christ." Fortunately for us, the church put together several very family friendly activities in addition to those better suited for adults. Today, we joined a group collecting toiletries for the local men's homeless shelter and then made cards for the clients that come there.

This morning, I read the story of "the good Samaritan" to the boys, and we related that to the men who come to the Samaritan Ministries shelter. Although our house is far from fancy, this experience reminds me of how very blessed we are. The boys really don't have a concept of our lifestyle vs. the experience of a homeless person. My little fellas are young, but they're not too young to understand how God can use us to impact the lives of others and to share His love. Before we arrived at our host's home, the boys and I went to Wal-Mart (sorry Lori!), and I let them pick out shampoo, toothpaste and toothbrushes, lotion, deodorant, etc. from the travel items section. They loved hurling them (not an exaggeration) into the cart and then running them through the self-checkout where I almost lost my religion. Honestly, it takes me ten times longer to do self-checkout because the machine always thinks I'M "SKIPPING THE BAGGING". It seems a little overly concerned that I might be carrying out 28 items in my two hands. I think I could have Loved Winston-Salem with a bit lower blood pressure if it wasn't for self-checkout. Yes, I know this is a less than Holy attitude. Just being real here.
ANYWAY, we arrived at our host's house just in time to eat our picnic lunch and listen to another lady read a book about the "Good Samaritan". Matthew knew the answers to all of her questions, and I think he was able to relate the story to what we were doing. After lunch, craft supplies were provided so that we could make cards and/or posters to decorate the shelter. The boys loved this and couldn't get enough of those foam stickers. Again, I think a lot of this went over Michael's head, but Matthew seemed to catch on to the idea. Michael's first poster is the one in the box below. We were joined by several families, and we all combined our supplies to fill up two fair-sized boxes.
Unfortunately, we weren't able to go with the rest of the group to deliver the supplies and take the tour of the shelter due to an appointment. We may try to fit that in with another group on Wednesday afternoon. We have several more ministry activities planned this week (including "Julie Learns to Breathe And Not Sweat The Small Stuff At Wal-Mart), so stay tuned!