Glimpses

Many times we don’t truly get to see what lies beyond our own daily lives. Many of us simply get out of bed each morning and move through our daily routines doing all the right (and sometimes wrong) things before climbing back into to bed each night. If we are lucky, we find a place within our community where we move beyond this daily routine and become part of a larger group. For many of us, that connector is Good News UMC.

During this season of advent, each of us at Good News have been preparing and waiting for the celebration of our savior’s birth. For the youth of our congregation, the emphasis this month has been on serving our community. We entitled our efforts for December, Christmas of Community. Many of you know that the youth decked out the Holy Ground house with a chrismon tree and decorations to bring this special season into our church space for groups that meet there each week. Last week, the youth served our community by assisting in the Christmas Family Festival catching glimpses of families sharing time together while learning about traditions from around the world. Our final activity this week was collecting and delivering food to a family in our community who was in need.

For many of our youth, this glimpse into another family’s life was an eye-opening experience. As we discussed this week in youth group, many of us come from similar types of families, households, incomes and lives. But everyone in our community is not as fortunate as us. As we caroled and delivered food to this grandmother and her handicapped grandchild, each youth received a hug of thanks from the grandmother through tears of relief. The youth of Good News got a glimpse into what it is like to be able to pay your bills, have an apartment, yet, not have enough to provide enough food for the table. The grandmother emphasized to the group what a difference the food we brought would make in their life. I think each youth left with a feeling of accomplishment, a feeling of service that made a difference and filled a bit with the spirit of Christmas. The key for each of us is to hold onto that feeling throughout the year and follow in the footsteps of our Father, serving those around us.

The youth would like to thank all those who gave to our food drive for our family in need either with money or actual food to fill their pantry. As you can see from the picture above, we were able to fully stock the pantry of the family plus we gave them two HEB gift cards to make a special Christmas dinner.

For more about Good News Youth, visit http://goodnewsyouth.wordpress.com/

Grace and peace,
Lavenda, Tim, Randy and Pastor Bob