365 Days of Service

Day 305 - April 18

I ran a ton of errands today for the party we’re throwing on Sunday, so I made sure to say hi and smile and said “Have a great day” to all of the people I interacted with at the checkout stands. Hopefully it brightened their day to talk to someone in a good mood!

Day 304 - April 17

We went out for dinner for a friend’s birthday tonight and bought his family dinner. It was a really fun night getting to know others a little better and just enjoy some great food. We went to a Japanese steak house and watched the chef do all kinds of fancy tricks with hot oil. It’s amazing that can be so entertaining!

Day 303 - April 16

I shopped for a book for Azriel tonight, the young lady that has befriended me at Switch. I love that she’s asking searching questions and isn’t afraid to admit that she doesn’t really get it. I’m blessed by the challenge and the opportunity to try to help find answers.

Day 302 - April 15

Served at Switch tonight with Ryan. I had another great chat with my new friend, Azriel. We talked through some pretty tough questions for an adult - I’m doing my best to help explain things for her. I am going to look for a book that will help us both.

Day 301 - April 14

I served at the Internet Campus during lunch today - and I didn’t have a single request for prayer. It was odd because I usually have 2 or 3. That’s okay, I know God was using other volunteers today. I prayed for the experience and the people who might get to know Christ for the first time.

Day 300 -  April 13 (YAY! 300 DAYS!)

Drove down to Mercy Ministry to deliver a printer toner for the office and to drop off a special surprise for Rosa. I was hoping it would make her day and her week a little easier.

Day 299 -  April 12

Happy Easter! Ryan and I spent the day serving in LifeKIDS today. I had 3 consecutive experiences: one in the toddler room, one with the two-year-olds and the last one with the babies. It was a lot of fun. I was exhausted, though, and reminded once again how hard it must be to be a parent. Especially without a bunch of volunteers there to help!

Day 298 -  April 11

Called my brother to wish him a happy 36th birthday. Wow, I can’t believe how much our family has changed in the last 30 years! It’s awesome to see God’s goodness among the tragedy and the hardships. I’m so blessed by an amazing and loving family! I also celebrated Easter with Ryan today serving in LifeKIDS at the Edmond Campus of LifeChurch.tv. What an amazing Easter weekend!

Day 297 -  April 10

Kicked off the Easter weekend serving with Ryan at the Edmond Campus of LifeChurch.tv. I spent the evening holding little babies. Not a bad way to serve!

Day 296 -  April 9

I can’t remember anything else, but I do know that I spotted a Twitter update from a friend about a friend, and visited this site to vote for her non-profit: http://www.matchstic.com/onthehouse/ “Myles Apart”. There is a contest running for one lucky non-profit to have their expenses paid! How sweet is that?

Day 295 -  April 8

Ryan and I served together at Switch tonight, our Youth experience at LifeChurch.tv. I’ve been unable to go because of bad allergies and headaches, so it was nice to be able to get back there tonight. I met with a young girl, Azriel, who was asking all kinds of great questions. I was able to help her feel at least a little better about what she is going through, and that felt really good. I hope I’m able to continue to help other kids with the wisdom God has given me - what I’ve learned so far, anyway.

Day 294 -  April 7

Celebrated Passover with friends of ours’ in our LifeGroup tonight. What an amazing experience. If you haven’t attended a Seder meal, I highly recommend it to everyone. It is very symbolic and educational about the history of the Bible, the life of Jesus, and the Christian faith. It was Ryan’s first experience and I think it really changed his perspective.

I served at the Internet Campus earlier during lunchtime and was able to pray with and speak with a young woman going through some relationship issues. I hope I was able to offer her some places to look for answers in our messages online: http://www.lifechurch.tv/message-archive. I’m not nearly as good a speaker as Craig Groeschel (haha) and I let them to straight to the source to hear some truth. I hope she gets some direction for her life.

Day 293 -  April 6

I spent some time at Mercy Ministry tonight hanging up clothing and sorting through bags of donations. It’s amazing to see what people will bring - and often hilarious. I’ve been trying to straighten the things on the hanging racks and cleaning off empty hangers. I know other people must keep up with it too, but it’s good to make sure the place looks nice before the week begins on Tuesday.

Day 292 -  April 5

I’d baked a cake earlier and we can never eat all of it - and we shouldn’t! So I delivered a few pieces to the neighbors and got to see them get excited again. It’s so much fun taking sweets next door. Hopefully I’m not messing up their blood sugar levels or anything!

Day 206 - Jan 5

Today was a bit of a struggle. I was tired. I was used to being at home taking it easy, sleeping in, focusing on myself. It was difficult to get up, start the day, respond to tons of email, and at the end of the day, find the energy to serve someone else. On Mondays I almost always make the drive to Mercy Ministry to meet a LifeGroup and help out any way I can. (I promised Rosa a year of Monday nights off - I’m living up to that promise, I hope!)

I was excited to go today because a friend, Holly, had packed a bad full of nice clothes and donated a couple of great winter coats. The generosity of my friends and co-workers never ceases to amaze me and continually challenges me to greater and greater levels of generosity myself. Is there more I could be doing? Is there a skill or talent that I can share with others? I have a few spare minutes, can I bless someone in that time? On and on. Today was no different, of course, as soon as I made the drive and unloaded the clothes to take inside, God energized me to do what I could for the poor of Oklahoma City. When I left I was glad He challenges me to serve!

Day 190 - Dec 20 - Day 205 - Jan 4

Another bulk post - with the holidays and being sick (twice!) I haven’t had the time or energy to post regularly. Sorry. Another observation I made was that it was incredibly difficult for me to find an opportunity to serve every single day. I am getting back on track, though, and will start the year with daily posts.

Before Christmas day, I was diagnosed with a bad ear infection and I came down with a stomach bug on the 23rd. I was able to do several things those days, including cooking for Ryan, his co-workers at the Edmond Campus of LifeChurch.tv for the team Christmas party, serving in the toddler room during experiences at the OKC campus, wrapping gifts for a very special family, baking cookies for our elderly neighbors, delivering Christmas cards and leaving a package on our neighbor’s door Christmas Day. I was also able to spend a day at Mercy Ministry where we fed 144 families for Christmas! It was such a blessing to be able to interact with so many people and to pray and pray and pray for those folks. God was definitely in the house.

Ryan and I recovered and spent a couple of days cleaning and packing for our trip to Nashville, TN to see family. While in Nashville, we spent a ton of time with our family, playing with nieces and nephews, spending time with my Grandpa (his first Christmas with us in years!) and eating great food prepared by my mom. I finished a painting that I’d started for my brother and helped my other brother prepare for a painting he was working on. We went bowling, played games and spent a lot of time catching up with everyone. What a miracle it was for us to be healthy and to be able to relax with our family. God definitely blesses the time we spend together.

When we returned, Ryan and I decided to serve ourselves with a little time spent working on the house. We repainted our living room and cleaned thoroughly, trying to remove all traces of the virus that plagued us! We rewarded ourselves with a late night trip to IHOP for pancakes, and we tipped the waitress $11.00. She turned back to us and said, “I love you, You’re awesome!”. It was money well spent. Sunday I was at a friend’s house working on a mural in their new baby’s nursery. I can’t wait to see how it turns out when I am finished.

And finally - the most rewarding thing I was able to accomplish over the last 2 weeks was to reward one of my good friends and her family with a much-deserved Christmas of gifts and giftcards. I’ve spoken about Rosa a few times before, and I’d promised her kids an awesome Christmas. Several families made this possible by chipping in and shopping for things on the kids’ wish lists. What an honor it was for me to be able to deliver bags of gifts to Rosa to put under the tree Christmas day. I continue to be amazed at the ways God blesses the faithful - and Rosa’s kids are an incredible bunch of young believers that inspire me on a regular basis. God is good!

Day 185 - Dec 15

I usually end the week (or begin it, for you Sunday-starters) serving at the Oklahoma City Campus playing with toddlers. It’s a fun way to serve and play before I have to get up and start a new week. Monday mornings are tough for me. I usually sleep in on Saturday and Sunday and adjusting to the earlier alarm is a stretch. The thought that gets me out of bed the quickest is knowing I have an opportunity to serve built in to my day. Serving at Mercy Ministry every week has not become mundane, instead it has become a part of me - a large chunk of my spiritual identity.

I had an opportunity last week to go to the Mercy Ministry Volunteer Christmas party where clients and volunteers gathered to eat some extremely tasty hand prepared Mexican food (thanks, Rosa!) and to share our hearts. As we gathered in the “living room” to wish each other a Merry Christmas, Jules, the director, asked us if we wanted to share what Mercy means to us. There weren’t many dry eyes in the room. I was amazed, awed, inspired and truly blessed to hear all that God has done and continues to do through that ministry. He is using it to impact the poor, the needy, the lost, the faithful and the affluent in indescribable ways. We did our best to put it into words. At the heart of it all, it’s best said with God is Good.

Day 174 - Dec 4

Jules and Rosa have been a strong presence in my life recently - they are the women who run Mercy Ministry. They both have shared their personal stories with me, encouraged me and led me through times of growth and spiritual challenge. It’s been awesome to get to know these ladies and to meet the people they interact with at Mercy on a daily basis. I have been blessed.

Recently, they decided to step out of their normal business hours and start a Mercy-based Single Moms Ministry. They are spending one evening a month allowing moms and their kids to come to Mercy to be fed and to be served - so that they get the individual attention they really need.

I was blessed enough to be invited to participate in the first Single Moms’ evening and I had the opportunity to interact with several women and to sit and talk with one for a while. She told me much of her story and I was extremely encouraged by her spirit and her faith. What an amazing woman. I look forward to the next single moms evening so I can continue to keep up with her and her family.

Some of the most impactful things I witnessed during the evening was seeing this group of people gather to help one another out - to offer assistance to strangers who become allies because of similar circumstances. Everyone pitched in to prepare dinner. Then we all headed back to the warehouse to load boxes and bags with food. There wasn’t a pair of idle hands or a single complaint the entire evening. I met some new volunteers and was introduced to several people I hadn’t met at Mercy before. To top everything off, Rosa spent some time speaking about her relationship with God, and I was spiritually fed, too.

If you’re interested in helping with this special ministry, get in touch. I’d love to give you the details.

Day 173 - Dec 3

Once a month our LifeGroup meets at Mercy Ministry to bag groceries, help with sorting clothes and stock shelves. About 10 of us were able to be there and Rosa came to share some of the awesome things we’ve been a part of this year. She pulled some statistics for us and this year alone we’ve served roughly 17,000 families. 17,000 families in a city of a population of about 1.1 million. That number is astounding for several reasons. Seeing what a dedicated group of people, staff and volunteers can do with limited resources amazes me. It’s only through the power and generosity of God that we are able to accomplish that.

It also amazes me that we are only feeding and clothing roughly .01% of the total population and .02% of the estimated 587,000 people living in OKC below poverty level. Is there something more we can do? Is it possible to unite the body of believers through an initiative like One Prayer to get the poor in cities around the world fed, even for one day?

Day 171 - Dec 1

I am continually inspired by my friend, Rosa, who is on staff at Mercy Ministry. She leads the groups of volunteers that show up day after day to prepare groceries for clients, pray with visitors and provide tangible evidence of Jesus’ love. Rosa is an inspiration to me for the way she leads the volunteers, lives out her passion serving the Lord, and continues to support me through this 365 day journey. She builds me up and lets me off the hook when I’m not up to serving, and she continues to brighten my day again and again. This post is for you Rosa - thank you for your friendship and your leadership!

I spent the evening with a large group of people that come once a month to serve at Mercy. We had a TON of work to do and it is always inspiring for me to see a group of people commit themselves to a goal that is bigger than they are. Even with a ton of work to do everyone was engaged, busy, working to get the place fixed up and ready for the next day’s business. It is so cool to be a part of Mercy, doing the work of Jesus, 2,000 years later.

Day 108 - Sept 29

I went to Mercy Ministry tonight to bag groceries and found out from Rosa that a new group was coming in. How exciting! I took the tour with them and got to hear Rosa’s heart for what she does at Mercy. She told some powerful stories and it reaffirmed what I’m doing there every Monday night. Being able to affect change in people’s lives on behalf of Jesus is pretty cool stuff. I’m honored.

It was a fun night working with the new LifeGroup and getting to meet new people. I showed them some of the ropes and then let them work. It’s always exciting to see people lit on fire and doing God’s work.

Day 27 - July 7

It is always disappointing when things don’t work out the way you planned or expected them to work out. Tonight was just one more example of how I can plan for service opportunities to the best of my ability and they still won’t work out for one reason or another. Last week our LifeGroup worked at Mercy Ministry preparing groceries to give away the next day. I love the fulfillment that comes with knowing you played a vital part in getting food to those families. So much so that I offered to be available every Monday night to help other LifeGroups do the same thing. Well, after a few phone calls the plan was to meet a LifeGroup at Mercy to bag groceries - they had a key for the building. On the way they realized they had forgotten the key and called to make sure they would still be able to get in. Rosa, on staff, thought I still had a key from our LifeGroup’s time there last week, but I had returned it. Long story short, we spent about 15 minutes outside Mercy waiting to see if anyone was nearby with a key.

The LifeGroup waiting was young with young kids and after they started to complain about the heat, their thirst (understandably so) and needing to use the bathroom, we decided to call it a day. Unfortunately that meant that we put a big strain on the group preparing for today’s business. We all felt so badly about the miscommunication and leaving the morning volunteers in the lurch. I have so much faith in God though, that I believe He has it all in His hands and will work it all out for the good. I know those families will be fed. I know they will receive the prayer they so desperately need. But, dang, it feels pretty unfulfilling to not be able to accomplish the goals you set out to achieve. Life is all about dealing with disappointment, but I still don’t like it. God, thank you for having all things under control. When I feel disappointed I know that I can turn to you for comfort and the promise of something better.

What has disappointed you recently? Has life experience helped you learn to deal with difficult things in a positive way?