This weekend my family and I volunteered at Basic Needs Ministry Food Pantry, PUBLIC library and thrift store in Garner, NC. This place is amazing and is a stellar example of what Bright Minds, Helping Hands and Hearts want to be, parnter with and help encourage more organizations and individuals to support.
With a little thought alot of effort and heart this group is changing lives in their community, although their service area is limited, it is identified as a high need area and efforts like this have a ripple effect and their benefit can reach far outside the service area with just a little help, encouragement and support.
My husband and I sat inside the computer area and looked up and labeled books for the library that has been organized with mostly DONATED!!! books. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing all these books from every genre, Classical Literature, foreign language literature, German, French, Spanish, LOTS of Romance novels, mystery, SCI-FI they have many STAR TREK novels, the Left Behind series. Videos!!! hundreds of them.
My 14 year old son and our 17 year old Exchange student from Thailand were among the OLDEST "youth" volunteers. They carried the boxes of books from storage to us, and from our labeling area to the library shelves. They helped shelve thrift store items, videos, and anything they were asked. These kids who were volunteering were awesome, hardworking for minimum of 4 hour shifts.
If the "heart benefits" were not enough for helping out, this group is part of the "HELPING HANDS NETWORK", "GIVE A DAY GET A DAY AT DISNEY" campaign, where in exchange for a day of service to a registered charity EACH volunteer receives a certificate for a free ticket to a Disney Theme park, approx. at $59-$99.00 value (depending on the park selected, Disney Land or Disney World parks).
They take donations and need volunteers to further their service to the Johnston and Wake County areas. It is a quick hour drive from Franklin county off the beltline (440 to I40, off Hwy 42). See the website for exact address and directions and more details about the work they do. http://www.4042needs.org
Please pray for this group and the coordinator, Ronald Still cw_rls@bellsouth.net
Join them and helpout anyway you can, share their information and get the word out about such a great work being done in our local area that can make a huge difference. We are definitely going back to help out, and have adopted this as "our charitable group to support, encourage and promote". All of donations that use to go to Good Will are now going to them.
If you have clothes, books, videos to be donated call me or drop them by the house and put them in the box on the front porch.
Showing posts with label Ministering to People. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ministering to People. Show all posts
Monday, March 8, 2010
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Helping those who can't help themselves
One of the passions and missions of this group is to Advocate, Help, Enpower and Befriend those that need and will accept our efforts as a gift and then when able will join us to "pay ahead" the kindness and bless someone else like they were blessed.
Unborn children are people that need all of these efforts and so are pregnant women. We want to extend a hand of friendship and understanding to them both. We were kicked into high gear with President Obama's Executive order on Friday that both upset us terribly and moved us to action. We are not alone, others are speaking out and trying to get these misinformed facts and personal feelings corrected and replaced with facts and programs and support. A detailed post with links to the articles so you can see them for yourself is over on my personal blog, From The Heart with Praise, Prayer and Perserverance http://fromtheheart-dotwigg.blogspot.com/2009/01/oh-what-day-big-changesbad-changessad.html
They say a picture is worth 1,000 words and music can speak louder that 300 people, Well this video should do 10 fold!. Check it out. Pass it on and join us in this project to education, inform, inspire and really Change things for the better. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyFrGbAvfHc
Unborn children are people that need all of these efforts and so are pregnant women. We want to extend a hand of friendship and understanding to them both. We were kicked into high gear with President Obama's Executive order on Friday that both upset us terribly and moved us to action. We are not alone, others are speaking out and trying to get these misinformed facts and personal feelings corrected and replaced with facts and programs and support. A detailed post with links to the articles so you can see them for yourself is over on my personal blog, From The Heart with Praise, Prayer and Perserverance http://fromtheheart-dotwigg.blogspot.com/2009/01/oh-what-day-big-changesbad-changessad.html
They say a picture is worth 1,000 words and music can speak louder that 300 people, Well this video should do 10 fold!. Check it out. Pass it on and join us in this project to education, inform, inspire and really Change things for the better. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyFrGbAvfHc
Saturday, November 8, 2008
I want to help people, But...
Helping people is the noblest of missions, but it is also the mission with the most casualty and injury of its workers. People are messy and unpredictable, but so worth the hassel, at least, God and Christ thinks so. Christ put His life on the Cross for people that were not the nicest, most well behaved and certainly were not appreciative of His sacrafice. But, what a difference that Love made!
I had a conversation with someone I was trying to recruit and this comment kept coming up. I want to help people, but....; and I hold the record for yeah, but statements. At least I did until a good friend stopped me in the middle of a statement and said, commit to something! YES or NO! no but's, no conditions, no explanation (this started a panic attack like you would not believe), but it was absolutely a pivotal point in changing poor decision making skills and controlling the fear.
Commitment is good. Determination is the glue that keeps things together in the storm, and Faith is what keeps you breathing.
Another, silly misconception is "Some people just do not want to be helped". This is a wrong and destructive way to think. People want help, People want God, sometimes they just can't see the way there, and they are afraid of taking things, or assistance because things are bad enough, what if this doesn't work? "I have to give up stuff to get something." "I know where I am at now I will just stay here and suffer instead of changing to an unknown situation and take a chance." They are saying to themselves.
People who are hurting, do not know what they want, they do not really care about the next five minutes or anything for that matter. They just want the pain to stop. All pain is not physical, but it can all cause the same reactions, poor judgement and bad choices, which leads to the bad behavior that is seen or experienced. But, like a small child having a temper tantrum, loosing our cool and abandoning them is not the way to help. The "Truth" is the best medicine, it goes down hard and leaves a sting and a bad taste for a while, but once it is digested, it makes everything better!
Behavior is like a volcano, what you see is the eruption, but the problems and thought processes that caused it have been working under the surface for awhile. Heat rises and rock flies. (modified slightly, but the main idea is borrowed heavily from a sunday school lesson, citation provided on request.)
This why the Combination of Mind, Body and Spirit is so important. It is the way God designed us, and is the main emphasis of the "whole person treatment" which is proving to be the most effect across the disciplines of medicine. Hence, our design for this group, it not only makes us a complete service resource but also allows members to contribute their strengths and develop those things that they are not as strong in, but what makes us different from other groups is our Inner strength, which comes from our Lord and Savior. "When we are weakest, He is strong" "Our strength comes from Him" that is why we can serve, even in difficult personal times, to difficult people, during crisis events. He is our Strength, we do it because He did it for us, and the ones we are serving are His too.
Think back to a time when you were not the most lovable, most cooperative, most godly behaving person (Be Honest, it has happened, you are human!). Did everyone bail on you? (If they did, sorry, but that does not mean they were working with God and acting appropriately.) We are called to a higher way of thinking, loving and doing, we are CHRISTians, our model is Christ, He never stopped teaching, loving, praying for His people. Even on the cross, bearing our sins, He prayed for us and interceded for us to the Father asking for him to forgive us. Can we bear alittle bad attitude, ungreatfulness, greed, anger? Can we take alittle mistreating, unfair accusations, and mistreatment for their souls sake. Are we willing to minister to their hearts, are we strong enough and determined to assist people back to their relationship with Christ?
When times get tough, troubles, illness, relationships crumble who do we drop first? Christ, who do we stop talking to? What is the first place we stay away from? In problem solving alot of times you reverse the order, trace your steps back to where things were wrong, and do the opposite. When things are tough, we need to talk to God more, Pray more, He needs to have our attention, our Hearts need to be opened, our Minds need to focus and we need to HEAR him so He can comfort us like no one else can. He can heal us like nothing else can. Faith in Him brings the results. Where their is no faith, there is fear, where the is fear, there is pain. To give them faith, show them Love.
We want to help people get the best answers, and the best assistance, we need to take the to Jesus, but that requires patience, love, longsuffering, and PRAYER, lots of heart felt, down on your knees, tear felt prayer for God to move in us, through us, around us, under us, and over us. Light us up like CHRISTmas lights!!! Christ is here, we just need to LIGHT the way so that others can see Him and recognize it is Him. They need it, but may not realize what they are looking at.
SHINE ON! Light the way, LOVE, ENCOURAGE, PRAY!!! Be willing to be used, (for His glory).
A life could be eternally impacted...by the actions you take and choices you make.
I had a conversation with someone I was trying to recruit and this comment kept coming up. I want to help people, but....; and I hold the record for yeah, but statements. At least I did until a good friend stopped me in the middle of a statement and said, commit to something! YES or NO! no but's, no conditions, no explanation (this started a panic attack like you would not believe), but it was absolutely a pivotal point in changing poor decision making skills and controlling the fear.
Commitment is good. Determination is the glue that keeps things together in the storm, and Faith is what keeps you breathing.
Another, silly misconception is "Some people just do not want to be helped". This is a wrong and destructive way to think. People want help, People want God, sometimes they just can't see the way there, and they are afraid of taking things, or assistance because things are bad enough, what if this doesn't work? "I have to give up stuff to get something." "I know where I am at now I will just stay here and suffer instead of changing to an unknown situation and take a chance." They are saying to themselves.
People who are hurting, do not know what they want, they do not really care about the next five minutes or anything for that matter. They just want the pain to stop. All pain is not physical, but it can all cause the same reactions, poor judgement and bad choices, which leads to the bad behavior that is seen or experienced. But, like a small child having a temper tantrum, loosing our cool and abandoning them is not the way to help. The "Truth" is the best medicine, it goes down hard and leaves a sting and a bad taste for a while, but once it is digested, it makes everything better!
Behavior is like a volcano, what you see is the eruption, but the problems and thought processes that caused it have been working under the surface for awhile. Heat rises and rock flies. (modified slightly, but the main idea is borrowed heavily from a sunday school lesson, citation provided on request.)
This why the Combination of Mind, Body and Spirit is so important. It is the way God designed us, and is the main emphasis of the "whole person treatment" which is proving to be the most effect across the disciplines of medicine. Hence, our design for this group, it not only makes us a complete service resource but also allows members to contribute their strengths and develop those things that they are not as strong in, but what makes us different from other groups is our Inner strength, which comes from our Lord and Savior. "When we are weakest, He is strong" "Our strength comes from Him" that is why we can serve, even in difficult personal times, to difficult people, during crisis events. He is our Strength, we do it because He did it for us, and the ones we are serving are His too.
Think back to a time when you were not the most lovable, most cooperative, most godly behaving person (Be Honest, it has happened, you are human!). Did everyone bail on you? (If they did, sorry, but that does not mean they were working with God and acting appropriately.) We are called to a higher way of thinking, loving and doing, we are CHRISTians, our model is Christ, He never stopped teaching, loving, praying for His people. Even on the cross, bearing our sins, He prayed for us and interceded for us to the Father asking for him to forgive us. Can we bear alittle bad attitude, ungreatfulness, greed, anger? Can we take alittle mistreating, unfair accusations, and mistreatment for their souls sake. Are we willing to minister to their hearts, are we strong enough and determined to assist people back to their relationship with Christ?
When times get tough, troubles, illness, relationships crumble who do we drop first? Christ, who do we stop talking to? What is the first place we stay away from? In problem solving alot of times you reverse the order, trace your steps back to where things were wrong, and do the opposite. When things are tough, we need to talk to God more, Pray more, He needs to have our attention, our Hearts need to be opened, our Minds need to focus and we need to HEAR him so He can comfort us like no one else can. He can heal us like nothing else can. Faith in Him brings the results. Where their is no faith, there is fear, where the is fear, there is pain. To give them faith, show them Love.
We want to help people get the best answers, and the best assistance, we need to take the to Jesus, but that requires patience, love, longsuffering, and PRAYER, lots of heart felt, down on your knees, tear felt prayer for God to move in us, through us, around us, under us, and over us. Light us up like CHRISTmas lights!!! Christ is here, we just need to LIGHT the way so that others can see Him and recognize it is Him. They need it, but may not realize what they are looking at.
SHINE ON! Light the way, LOVE, ENCOURAGE, PRAY!!! Be willing to be used, (for His glory).
A life could be eternally impacted...by the actions you take and choices you make.
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