Buckets of Hope Update

Some really exciting things have been going on in regards to the Buckets of Hope for Haiti.

First, I(Margie) was shopping at Fred Meyer and they had flour on sale (for the same price as Walmart in the T/C) so I was stocking up for the buckets. Now you need to understand that when we go shopping I usually have the two younger ones in tow and at Fred Meyer especially it seems all the older people like to stop and engage them. My little ones are very active, in a good way generally, and people really enjoy watching them. Back to the story...this lady stops and says something to the kids and then looks in my cart and says, "Wow!! It looks like someone is going to be doing some baking." I explained to her quickly that we were packing buckets of food to send to Haiti and that they would include flour, rice, beans, peanut butter, oil, etc. She was very intrigued and asked "Can I help?" I, of course, said, "Sure! We would love for you to help." She reached into her pocket, pulled out some cash, handed it to me and said "God bless you!" I was in shock and thinking, "No, God bless you!" A complete stranger who I have never seen and will probably never see again, living on a fixed income, gave me cash for Haiti. God is so AWESOME!!! God is so alive!!!

Second God thing that happened this week or should I say continues to happen. :) Todd brought the idea of participating with the Southern Baptists in the Buckets of Hope to our church as a quick announcement on Sunday morning. We set out a bucket on a table in the foyer for people to see what all the contents were. We had overwhelming support from the church body for them. We had people even last night (Wednesday) wanting to purchase some or some more. Here is the VERY cool part. Our average attendance at church is down to around 100 people (God is active though and doing some amazing things, if this were a personal blog I would share). We have around 100 people maybe a little more coming to church, including babies, this is people not families. We have over 20 buckets that people have given us money for. That is 1/5th of our congregation! And we are not done yet. I know of several more that are planning to give on Sunday. 1/5th of our congregation reaching out being God's hands and feet in Haiti. I am so honored to call them my family. We were expecting maybe a dozen buckets purchased. I guess our expectations are a little low :)

I praise God for showing Himself to me this week. I praise God for the SBC and the opportunity to do this (it has greatly impacted my children). I praise God for a church family as well as a biological family that has supported this ministry. God is awesome and worthy of our praise!!!