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|  SeaCoast Grace Church Cypress, CA We visited Rick Warren's church in Lake Forest California when he told about the HIV/AIDS pandemic and challenged his congregation to do something about it. He told a story about visiting a school in Africa where all the children were sitting in the dirt with no shelter, no chairs or tables, no books and no paper or pencils. Then he said there was a waiting list to get into this school. That story broke our hearts. He recommended looking on the World Vision/Saddleback website to learn of ways to help and that is where we found out about SchoolTools. We were planning to try to put together 100 kits as a family to help with this project. In July Doyle Surratt, our pastor from SeaCoast Grace Church in Cypress, gave a message about how Americans and Christians are viewed around the world. One of the things he said was that Christians should not just be known as people who are against something, but that they should try to make a positive influence on the world. He challenged us to each do something that would show the love of the Lord to the world. Right away we thought of the SchoolTools program. We got permission to put an announcement in the bulletin and got 1,000 zip-lock bags with instructions for filling the bags. The week SchoolToolswas in the bulletin, our pastor had just returned from Africa to dedicate a building at an orphanage and showed some heart wrenching pictures of some of the little children that live there carrying their own water up a steep hill. He made a plea to the congregation to raise $30,000 so the school could tap into the city water line since their water source was contaminated swamp water. The people of our church were all very touched by this and everyone wanted to help in some way. Over $39,000 came in for the water line and all 1,000 of the zip-lock bags went out. It was the perfect weekend to launch SchoolTools not only because of the message, but because everyone was getting school supplies and they were on sale at all the stores. We believe God's timing was perfect. The next three Sundays people brought back their filled bags and we got 840 back! We wish you could have seen the looks on the faces as the people turned in their bags. Several people said they had fun shopping and filling the bags. Some people got a bag for each member of the family, they each selected a country they wanted to help then went shopping together and filled the bags. They all looked so proud when they turned them in. All ages were blessed by doing this from pre-schoolers to the senior citizens.Sorry, we don't have any pictures. Several people asked if we would be doing this again so we hope our church will want to do it again. Thank you for all you do for His children, Dave & Carolyn McLendon Click here to get started and begin a rewarding experience. |  |
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