By Vicki Scott
Earlier this week, we gave out Christmas baskets to shut-ins and other special friends, which filled our hearts! What a day it was! It blows my mind when things like this happen. I was not the one to instigate this project or follow through on it, but it happened. God made it happen. It was an honor to be a minute part of it.
One of the ladies from our group of hummingbirds, which is an adult senior outreach ministry, called me a while back with an idea. Her daughter works as a teacher at a school that sponsors a project that gives out packages to adult seniors every year. Each package is filled with things like lotion, bath towels, kitchen utensils, blankets, candy and deodorant. Last year the group gave out around 300 packages! At any rate, our Lady Hummingbird wanted to know how we could get packages for our senior community. She was told to supply the names and addresses and that they would fix some packages up for them. When I found out about this project, I was excited.
When all the information was gathered, a list was put together of names and addresses to be submitted.
Other members of the hummingbird group heard about the plans and donated enough items to make more packages. They also came up with a day and time to distribute the packages. Someone brought cards for us all to sign as well. We ended up making and distributing around 20 packages in our community! Eight of us hummingbirds met at the church and spent the day distributing and singing. Okay, we’ll call it singing. It was from our hearts, anyway.
It took us almost all day to finish because we took time to fellowship as much as we could during each visit. We did not warn anyone ahead of time because we wanted it to be a surprise, so some folks were not at home. With surprises, no one would be on edge and have the opportunity tell us we were late. It all worked out, and it was such a blessing!
Credit for the project goes to God for using people to make it happen. There have been so many thank you messages sent to me, but it was not my project. I was honored to have a small part, but I was not in charge of it or overseeing it. This project could have happened while I was in a coma. I am just in awe, and the Hummingbirds are excitedly talking about and planning for next year’s event. As I write this, my phone is dinging with multiple texts about our visits. It has been such a learning experience – we cannot stop talking about it!
One thing I realized and confirmed was that it was not the gifts we distributed; it was our presence that these folks most enjoyed. It did not matter how they dressed or what the house looked like; they insisted that we come in and sit for a while. We did not care how they or their house looked, either. One of our gifts went to a lady in the nursing home. She kept apologizing because we had nowhere to sit. It was difficult to leave every place we visited, and we treasure our time spent with these wonderful people!
Our community is full of legends who taught school for 40-plus years, were Sunday school teachers for 50-plus years, former babysitters of our children, piano players, hairdressers and many other professions that we were honored to be in their presence. Our Hummingbirds are working toward spending more time in the presence of these awesome individuals and more in the community. What an experience! We are looking forward to next time! Hopefully, it will be soon. I do not think we can wait a year, however!