Sunday, October 5, 2008

Faith and Mission Work

Last weekend at church, we picked up a packet for our neighborhood food drive. Faith and I worked on it last weekend, filling out the fliers with our info, and then stuffing them into bags. Then we loaded up the wagon and went door to door. We managed to actually talk to most of our neighbors as we were going door to door, instead of leaving the bags on the doors.

Faith was SO CUTE. She'd go up, ring the bell and when someone would answer she would say, "We're collecting food for hungry people who don't have food."
After this, the person at the door would look at me for a translation.
"Food drive." I'd say, and recognition would dawn.
"Ah!" they would say, "Cans?"
"Yes. Cans or boxes." I'd reply.
And then, off to their kitchen while they found something. No one who talked to her turned her down. Some only had one or two things. Some gave so much Faith couldn't carry it back to the wagon. Our retired 1st grade teacher neighbor invited her in and had her choose whatever she wanted out of her (well stocked) pantry. Faith chose many, with a little help and a lot of encouragement by J. :)

Saturday, we went back around (as our fliers said we would) looking to see if any of the houses we'd left fliers for had left anything for us. (They hadn't. All of 3 houses worth, I'll admit.) We came back home and boxed up our gatherings. Two full (and heavy!) boxes worth. Not bad for a 5 year old, an afternoon, and a single block's worth of door to door. We loaded them into the car and took them over to the church. We dropped them off with the volunteer who was helping gather the collections and back home we went.

Not bad, if you ask me.

However, Faith isn't satisfied with this. "Where are the hungry people who need the food, Mom?"
"What?"
"Where are the hungry people who we collected the food for? I want to give the food to them."

Wow. Um. I explained to her that the food would be sorted and taken to the people who need it over the next few weeks. She's not satisfied. Even this morning she told me she wants to go give the food to people who are hungry. I guess we're going to have to find a local food pantry or soup kitchen who will allow a 5 year old in to help. I know most of them around here require kids to be at least 12 to help out... so this may be an interesting task. I have contacts in this regard though, and so I will make inquiries on Tuesday, when we get back to work. If that fails, I guess maybe we can pack up some sack lunches and head to the areas in town where homeless folks hang out, and have her help hand those out.

I just love what a huge heart she has toward others. She is such a giving kid. Don't get me wrong, she has her selfish moments. (She is 5 after all!) Twice in the past week she has bought lolly pops. Once, with her points at church, another with her Way-To-Go! points at school- both of which she had to work hard to earn, I'll add- and both times she not only got one for herself, but one for her sister. And waited to eat hers until her sister had one too. Even if it meant waiting hours.