When the world is going mad, do something good

Hello All,

I hope that you are well, safe, contented and warm.   Usually, I live in a bit of a news/media bubble- I don't have a TV, I don't read the newspaper or internet news, listen to radio news or really know what is going on in the world.  I prefer it this way.  Yet, of course, I know about the atrocious events of Friday in France.  CBC told me as he was reading the news.  And another attempt to frighten, intimidate, threaten, maim, hurt, terrorize and try to spread dischord, fear, xenophobia and hate.

Our reaction has to be loving, kind, reaching out, doing what we can, trying to keep to the things we do whilst acknowledging, sympathising and doing what we can.

Thus, on Saturday morning, I headed off to the church hall where it was time for 'Operation Christmas Child' shoebox packing. If you don't know the premise of this, Samaritan's Purse, a charity, organises the transportation of filled shoe boxes, full of presents to children in poor countries who might otherwise not know love and receive a gift at Christmas. I came across this many years ago through My Weekly magazine and took great delight in sending off a shoebox, decorated in cheerful wrapping paper filled with gifts for a child which was then sent to Romania, to children in orphanages.

It is the custom of the church I go to, to offer people the opportunity to contribute individual gifts as well as or a filled shoe box. I've been having fun over the last month or so, buying little bits and dropping them off in the boxes at church- a cuddly unicorn, a pack of rubbers, a box of African toy animals, a pack of toothbrushes, bright soaps, necklaces, pencils, colouring pencils, toothpaste and the suchlike.

I turned up to the hall on Saturday (late!) to see a hive of activity.  Gifts had been organised into tables.  (these photos were taken an hour in)

Toiletries and hygiene essentials:

Toys:

Stationery:

Sweets:

 The leaflets for labelling the age of the child the box was intended for:

 Hats, scarves,gloves:

And then there was a production line of wrappers of shoeboxes.
An amazing collection of shoeboxes was piled up in the corner and sheets of wrapping paper, scissors and sellotape were laid out.
I decided to join the production line of box wrappers and left the filling of boxes to the kids.

  I joined the lovely Pip, organiser of it all, and had a lovely, jolly time wrapping the boxes.

 Anyone who has ever received a present from me knows that wrapping is not my forte. You can guarantee your present looks like it's been through a bush backwards, twice.

My first box was rather ramshackle, particularly as the paper was too small and I had to do an extensive patchwork job.

 We had a giggle over trying to get this T-rex into a box- he was huge and awkward but we found a box that he fitted into!

 After my first box, I decided to get mathematical over it and found a ruler and measured the exact dimensions of my shoebox, drew dots for positioning  and then found 2 identical-sized boxes and cut around my template so the next three were super neat.

 After we finished, there was not quite enough items to totally fill the last few boxes so I headed off to town later when CBC was back and bought a selection of items from Poundland for a boy aged 10-14's box.  I decided to go for this as I know that girls are easier to cater for at this age so I grabbed a calculator, pinball game, thicksocks, soaps, notebooks, pens, pencils, sweets, toothbrushes and toothpaste and handed them over to Pip today at church to fill one of the empty boxes.

 Here's the pile.  There were 150 boxes filled yesterday by the volunteers before today.  It was nice to get involved in this, particularly given the timing, to be able to do something for someone, when otherwise it is easy to feel helpless.

Today's service was led by the Youth-worker Liz.  The bible reading was on Psalm 37:

By the waters of Babylon,

there we sat down and wept,

when we remembered Zion.

2 On the willows there

we hung up our lyres.

3For there our captors

required of us songs,

and our tormentors, mirth, saying,

“Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

The river of Babylon, the Euphrates, was laid across and the children were invited to build boats to sail on it with messages of thanks for the things were are grateful for.

 and stones too.

I am grateful for being safe today, and I hope and pray that we can continue to do something good if we cannot know what to do to help.  One small bit of good done by many people makes the world better somewhere, even just for a moment.

xxx