How are you all? It has been a while since I have come on
my blog, in fact the seasons have changed and we are in the middle of autumn. I
love this time of the year, when the leaves turn and we get closer to
Christmas. Some of you shudder at the thought of thinking about Christmas in
October but at Kingston Vineyard and Growbaby we love to.
Why? Because it is the time of year that my church start
the huge job of organising the Christmas gifts for some of the most vulnerable
children in our borough. Do you know how many gifts my girls get under the
tree? Too many! And I love watching them unwrap each gift, I love the look of joy
on their faces. And it breaks my heart to think there are children, possibly
even in the road we live in that get nothing under the tree at all. There are
children that have had to flee domestic violence this year. I have met their
mothers, heard their awful stories of having to flee in the middle of the
night, leaving everything they own behind just so that they can be safe. There
are children whose parents are addicted to substances and will not have thought
to buy them something for Christmas. And then there are the children of parents
who love them very much but this year they lost their jobs or they were
diagnosed with terminal illness and they have no money to buy them anything
special. And the list goes on.
I love my church. We are small and God doesn’t care about
that! He can use anyone to reach out into the world and show His love. Even me
and even you!
In the year that has gone by, Kingston and Richmond
boroughs have joined together and so we have twice as many children to give
gifts to. Last year we gave around 850
gifts to the children and this year we already have 1200 requests and we don’t even
have all the names yet! Social services, the police, children centres and other
organisations send us the details of children that deserve a gift under the
tree. We partner with Epsom College who give us around 650 gifts and so this
year we will need another 800 plus gifts. How will we do it you ask? I don’t know
but I do know that we are not worried about it because the gifts will come,
they always do.
The card that goes with the gift tells the child that
this is a demonstration of how much Jesus loves them. Jesus taught that we were
to reach out to our neighbours and show them His love. Some of us have had a really
difficult 2014, a year filled with tears and heart ache but it is this time of
the year that we can look around and be grateful for what we do have. Despite
our tears, most of us have more than a lot of others in our community. Perhaps it is time for us to give a little back.
Do you want to be a part of something that could make all the difference to a
child this year? I do!
http://www.kingstonvineyard.co.uk/growbaby-christmas
http://www.kingstonvineyard.co.uk/growbaby-christmas
