Thankful

This November Mosaic showed how blessed we are by blessing others for Thanksgiving. I was most blessed by the enthusiasm for serving that I witnessed from our new church family.

For Jessup Elementary School we filled three of these baskets and added a turkey to each to share my favorite meal of the year with a few families who might not have as much to be thankful for as we do. They were so appreciative (and surprised that we put them in real baskets, turns out usually Thanksgiving baskets come in boxes, how boring)!

We also collected lots of clothes for the students at Jessup that can't afford uniforms.

We had so many people volunteer to serve on Thanksgiving that we had to add an extra service project. We signed up to help prepare Thanksgiving dinner with the Bea Gaddy Family Center. The women's shelter for this organization burned down the week before, so they had their name in the news a lot. The publicity must have drawn a bigger crowd than they expected. When we arrived with 20 Mosaic volunteers, there wasn't anything for us to do. It made an awesome statement about Baltimore's attitude toward the poor, but it made for a rough morning for me, having lead many people downtown away from their families on Thanksgiving. The picture above shows the long line of tiny people waiting to be served.

In the evening we made up for the morning's disappointment by preparing dinner for the guests of Baltimore's Ronald McDonald House.

We brought turkey and all the fixin's. Enough to fill everyone's stomach and many of the refrigerators at the house.
My favorite part is when serving and goofing off look interchangeable. I thank God for a church that recognizes this is how we're meant to spend ourselves.

"Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight..." -James 1:27 MSG