loving the community

One of the 1800 homes that have received gifts through our outreaches is the home of Wally and Florence. This is an older couple, as kind, gentle and loving as any couple I’ve met. Florence became very interested in our church because of the little gifts she kept receiving, so she finally stopped by the church office one day to meet the staff and find out about worship services.

Because of her interest, and email contact with the daughter of Florence, I visited this wonderful couple. Wally had recently come home from the hospital and was recovering from some health issues the day I visited. We had a great conversation, and while I was there, Florence renewed her commitment to Jesus Christ. She commented that she had not been to church in 40 years, but both she and Wally would be coming to church when he felt better. A few weeks later they began attending, and had been consistently in worship for the last three months.

Wally had never made a commitment to Christ. I asked him, during one of my visits, if he would like to accept Christ into his heart. In his words, he was “not quite ready,” but continued to faithfully attend, and enjoyed the worship services.

This week something special happened. Florence called the church to let us know that Wally would like to accept Christ into his heart, and he’d like the pastor to come over. I was over the next day! We had a great time talking, and then we came to the reason for the visit. I led him in a brief prayer, asking Jesus to come into his life. It was nothing less than glorious! Wally is 90 years young.

That’s why we are reaching out to our community. We would never have met Wally and Florence if we had not given out those little gifts. They even commented on how they liked our low key approach of giving gifts, and that we weren’t pressuring them to pray for salvation. Loving the community works, because that’s is the heart of Jesus Christ, loving and serving those who do not yet know Him.