FAITH IN ACTION

Each year Douglas DFACS coordinates a Secret Santa program for children in our community in foster care. At the end of October FIA received a request for help which read, in part: “In our nation’s current economic condition, the need is greater than ever, and we expect to receive fewer donations than in prior years.”

A few weeks ago, we received another fearful solicitation: “Due to low response, only 32 out of the 150 children in foster care have been sponsored.”

Thanks to unsolicited financial support from our mission partners at Atlanta Revival Center and First United Methodist Church, Faith In Action purchased, wrapped, and delivered numerous Christmas gifts for our community’s neediest children. With that delivery we were informed by DFACS that all 150 children had been sponsored and would wake up Christmas morning to find the same gifts under the tree that more fortunate children will receive.

As hard as these times have been, there is good news for us this Christmas: “Do not be afraid, for I bring you glad tidings of great joy for all people, for unto you this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.”

We rarely venture into Atlanta because there is so much to do in Douglasville.  This past Sunday, the six degrees of God—sort of like the six degrees of Kevin Bacon trivia game that connects everyone to the actor in six steps—made multiple connections between people which brought us to a rough section of Boulevard after dark, to help a single Jamaican mother of three children.

Tina serves FIA and works for a Fortune 500 company in Atlanta; she overheard a co-worker talking about how Alpharetta mega-church Northpoint sent a ministry team bearing food downtown and met Nadine even though she was not on their list to be served that day.  The Northpoint team helped her anyway because she and three children had no food other than a small amount of milk.  The apartment was also empty except for a TV and clothing.  Tina asked The Pantry to provide a Thanksgiving turkey and trimmings which her brother Israel gladly took to Nadine, who has no transportation.  Then Tina asked if we could furnish Nadine’s apartment and somehow the Holy Spirit moved because we said yes to something we don’t normally do.

The six degrees of God continued to bring us all together to serve Nadine.  Somehow Tina connected donors from Douglasville to Alpharetta, Roswell to Decatur with all of Nadine’s needs and as we arrived at donor homes, the blessings overflowed.  First we were given numerous wrapped Christmas gifts, “for the children.”  Then we were given a large food basket plus $100 in gift cards “for Nadine and the kids.”  We realized that the ladies had been talking and there was far more to this than picking up and delivering furniture.

Paul and I had quite a time dealing with the street folk and navigating the four doors and stairs leading to Nadine’s tiny apartment on Boulevard.  We have to admit it was a little scary being down there after dark, being accosted; one of Nadine’s kids said, “there’s some weird people out there.”  Of course we were apprehensive about something Nadine lives with every day.  But somehow, the six degrees of God connected us all together, from Northpoint Community Church, to the offices of a large corporation, and to a small ministry in Douglasville, holding hands, crying, praying, and realizing that the Lord Jesus Christ had come to be with us and this little family in the dark of Boulevard in Atlanta, on a Sunday night in December.

Where is God on Sunday?  Do you find Him only in church? Or do you find him in the hands of a middle class woman in Norcross wrapping presents for children she will never meet, or in the hands of an Alpharetta grandmother buying gift cards, or in the gurgle of an autistic boy?  We think we found Him that day, just six degrees away, and all we had to do to find Him was touch each other.