Gifts For a Family

I accomplished my goal of finding a family in need to give gifts to this Christmas. (see posting from Dec. 7 if you don't know what I am talking about) I found a family through a lady (Sharon) that attends the church I go to. She is involved with Kids Hope USA, and she helps out to find families in need from Burton Elementary. Now, back on the posting on Dec. 7, my friend Massi had posted a comment saying that she has wanted to give to a family as well, but she didn't know where to begin finding a family. So as soon as I read that comment, I called her and told her that I had a way to find a family if she wanted to help out, and she said she did. I was telling another friend of mine, Nerissa, about it, and she wanted to help out too. Then, one of my coworkers also wanted to give money for gifts!!! God is so good! :)

SO - we were given a family of 4 - a mom, 2 daughters, and a son. Sharon gave me the ages, the sizes, and the interests of the children. She also told me they came from Mexico, and the mom had to leave 4 of her 7 children behind. How do you decide which children to bring and which to leave?? How heartbreaking......

Anyway, Massi, Nerissa, and I decided how we wanted to split things up, and then our shopping spree began. It was SO much fun shopping for them and picking things out. Also a little difficult because you don't know what colors or styles they like. We ended up getting the family 4 fleece blankets, sweaters, pajamas, playdough, a bead kit to make jewelry, nailpolish, gum, eyeshadow, gloves, shirts, a cool car for the son who is 6, candles and a candleholder, cookies, lotions, bathsoaps, and lipgloss. Massi and I delivered the items today, and we filled their table up with gifts.

Ok - now I need to tell you how God's hand was in the situation the whole time.......From the very beginning His hand was in it when I wrote out my goal, to when Massi commented, to when I contacted the family to set up a time to drop the stuff off and found out they do not speak ANY English, and I had to ask Massi to call because she speaks Spanish. I was so thankful for her, and we had a beautiful day together.

When we were at the house today, just one of the daughter's (Ruth) who is 14, and the 6 year old son were there because the mom and the sister were at work. Just before we were getting ready to leave, Massi was having a conversation with Ruth, and when she finished, she looked back at me with this panicked look on her face, and I was wondering what was going on. She proceeded to tell me that she asked how the mom and the sister get to work, and Ruth said her brothers take them. Oh no........there were two other sons living there that we were not informed about. (that means she has 9 children) Ruth told us that the two we didn't know about are 19 and 20 years old. At this point, we feel bad because there are so many gifts for the others and nothing for them. We quickly decided we would be going out to get them something and told Ruth we would figure out a time to get back to the house with their gifts. This is another part of the story where I can only say it was God at work. It was that ONE question that Massi asked that informed us of the other two boys........completely a God thing.......we were almost ready to leave..........I'm at a loss for words.......................it's God.

We now bought 2 hooded sweatshirts, 2 long sleeve cotton shirts, and 2 pairs of gloves for the boys, and we need to find time on Sunday or Monday to drop them off because we want them to have the gifts on Christmas day.

OH - I just remembered another part of the story - we found out we were given the wrong address. We showed up at the address we were given and kept knocking on the door and nobody would answer. We then went to the car and tried to call a couple of times, but Ruth wasn't answering at that point. Then we looked at a couple of other doors on the house, unsure of what to do. When we were back in the car another time wanting to call again, our Nextel phones weren't working. They were giving us a message of "Call Failed, System Busy". After some time, our phones began working again, and right as Massi dialed the number, she said "Please God let her answer" and just a few seconds after she said that, Ruth answered!! We got the correct address from her and had to go down just a few streets from the one we were on.

It was a wonderful experience, and I love all the parts of the story where all you can say is, "It's a God thing."