Reason For H.O.P.E.

I was in church this morning and usually right before the holiday season kicks off we have a guest speaker who comes in to talk about an outreach center called H.O.P.E. that was first started by the pastor of our church that helps needy people in our community. The church collects food for the food bank regularly and I give regularly to the bank.

But today I felt the need to do more. So the guest speaker came up and talked about the Adopt-A-Family program that was kicking off just in time for the holidays. If you adopt a H.O.P.E. family you will do whatever you can to help make the holiday nice for that family. I decided that we were going to sign up. You do not know the family that you are choosing. All you know is how many children and adults are in that family. We got a family with one child and two adults.

When you open the envelope there is a piece of paper in there that describes the ages of the children, sex, and first name(s) along with anything that the family might be requesting. It turns out that the child in the family that we adopted is 2 months old and is a boy. The family says that it needs "anything."

When I saw that I was deeply touched in many ways. It touched me because I have 4 children of my own and I realize how blessed they are to have the comforts of life that they do have. Secondly it touched me because the parents didn't seem too demanding of any one thing in particular. Perhaps because they are so needy that they asked for anything that we could give. And last, it touched me because I never imagined that the luck of the draw would give me an infant that we could help. There is something really powerful about that thought given we are approaching the Christmas season.

My mind went into high gear as our family talked about what to do for this family. First thing is that we should get some baby essentials like basic clothing. We will also buy a few cases of diapers and wipes. For the family we are going to give them a Publix gift certificate for food. After we do all that we will start thinking about toys and books. I am looking forward to this week to start shopping and planning for this family. If all goes well and we have some money left over we may go back and adopt another family. After all, it's the season of giving thanks.