This year has been pretty tough. I am sure you will agree! But our community group have been trying to find ways to be a blessing in the community, and to bring smiles to peoples faces especially during this challenging year. It all started with a conversation in our group, where someone was talking about how their NHS co-workers were feeling demoralised and fed up – immediately we started planning how we could show love for a set of complete strangers. Spreadsheets were formed, and cards started to be written and of course cakes were made! We managed to gather the names of 50 NHS staff members, contacts of someone in our group and packed each person up a bundle of love. We even had the kids drawing rainbows and writing their names on. Each person was prayed for by name at community group and we left the rest to God. The response we got from this was fantastic –
‘Emotional to receive – thank you so much.’ ‘Thanks for being so kind’ Thank you for thinking of us.’ ‘Getting this felt like a big hug that we all needed.
It was a huge success and opportunity for us to do something for others – showing God’s love in a tiny way. We then decided to move to the educational sector – and wanted to encourage the whole school community – we decided to name them as being ‘community heroes’ throughout this pandemic, and off we went again. We all knew what we needed to do, with the spreadsheet being a bit bigger this time we managed to pull off 85 individual cards, cake and we bought daffodils to give to each member of staff. I was lucky enough to be part of the delivering around school, and what joy my heart felt, as I saw my colleagues, friends and team receive encouragement and love from complete strangers. The atmosphere was electric, as the children were cheering for their teachers and school staff – joining in with recognising the important role they have played over the past year. There were tears of thanks, and smiles all day. I love the energy and enthusiasm that has gone into both projects, and I am already excited about the next ….