Cheerful Giving Assists Many Over the Holiday Season
FEBRUARY 2007
The Christmas gifts have been opened, the decorations have been stored away, and the outdoor lights are down. The spirit of the season has come and gone and we’re already into February. Wait a minute! Can’t we still reflect on the joy of the season?
To put you back into the spirit, I want to talk about December and January when WUMC had the “Red Book.” During this time WUMC was the church primarily charged with providing assistance to those in need in the community. Funds and donations came from members’ generosity and gifts to the Pastors’ Discretionary Fund. Help was given to a variety of people in differing situations, including people between jobs, or facing a sudden illness, or caught between paperwork filing and receiving benefits, or with unplanned expenses threatening fragile support structures, such as when a car absolutely must be repaired and there are no savings, no credit cards and no family to fall back on.
During December and January, WUMC gave out a total of 200 bags of food to local families, the Seneca Street UMC and the Asbury Shalom Zone (ASZ). Gift certificates were given to Seneca Street. Christmas gifts were collected for ASZ’s Three King’s Celebration and Gateway Longview. WUMC also provided $1,600 in other assistance including Tops and Quality certificates and cash. Examples of the assistance included:
- Food and paper products while someone was waiting for disability checks to be processed.
- While an AIDs patient waited for his/her social worker to sort out paperwork to obtain assistance, money was needed for purchasing medications, food, and to pay for utility bills.
- A person undergoing treatment for cancer needed food for three teenagers.
- A person was short on cash for car repairs and absolutely needed the car to get to work.
- An apartment dweller had a broken window. WUMC repaired the window then provided some much needed furnishings for the apartment (purchased from the ASZ store).
- Someone going to college to better themselves needed bus money to get to school from a surrounding suburb.
- A family, devastated by the death of one parent and the sickness and treatment of cancer in the surviving spouse, was adopted by WUMC and provided Christmas dinner, clothing and gifts for the children.
Even though December is a busy time of year and we participate in a variety of other mission projects, the congregation responded generously by providing for every Red Book need. Recipients were relieved and thankful. Some offered to help out at the church, others just needed to talk, while some expressed that they had never experienced such a warm and caring atmosphere. As United Methodists we are often asked to support mission requests. It’s hard to know if our gifts are really doing any good. This season, is some very real, measurable ways, some of our communities’ neediest were helped and that, my friends, is what we are called to do.
“Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work...You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us” (2 Corinthians 9: 7, 8, 11).
If you would like to help, it’s not too late. The food pantry could use some replenishing with canned meats, peanut butter, spaghetti sauce, cereal, and juice. In addition, paper products such as toilet tissue and sanitary products are in demand. Thank you for all your support this season and let’s not forget to the keep the Christmas spirit in our hearts all year long.
Peggy Farrell