A GREAT DAY!

We had a GREAT day today. Our church has begun participating in a refugee outreach at an apartment complex in Houston. Most of the people that live in this complex are refugees from areas where there is much unrest, mostly in Muslim countries in Africa and the Middle East. We want to show Christ's love to them and build relationships with them so they can hopefully understand the love of Jesus that we hold so close to our hearts.

Today we had what I can only describe as a big playdate with the refugee children. One of our pastors, a few members of our youth, and a few women (and Jack, Sarah, Makenzie, and Maddie) went out together with bubbles, sidewalk chalk, books, and popsicles to build relationships and trust with the people who live in the complex.

Here is a member of our youth helping Jack climb a tree.

Here are the kids eating their popsicles and playing together.

I'm so grateful to have this opportunity to show my children the importance of service and of showing the love of Christ to people in the community! I pray that my children grow up to have a heart for God, and I hope that one day they will be the members of the youth that head out to do these things!

From what I understand, the refugee women have gotten the idea (based on the media, TV, and movies here in the US) that Christian women are not family oriented. (Sheesh, I don't know how they could have gotten that idea from American TV!) We want to do our part to change their perception of Christian mothers! I hope Rachel and I were able to start to do that today. And if not, at least we had fun trying. :-)

In other news, Sarah pulled up for the first time the other day. She is only 7 1/2 months old! Jack was probably 10 months before he started to pull up! But she's got him to keep up with, so I'm sure she's going to learn everything much sooner!