Ever watch the TV show "Secret Millionaire" where a wealthy person poses as a volunteer and ends up helping remarkable, every day citizens, aiding the truly needy? And along the way is also touched to the emotional core. That's what Redeemer did when it handed each of us $20.00. Off we went not knowing the outcome.
In my case, it meant taking a Redeemer VBS lesson learned -- painting wooden figures for a nativity scene that a child could take home -- and bringing it to children who had never set foot inside Redeemer and more than likely not in any church. The children were all part of SPEAR, the after school project in East Central Spokane supported by the Lutheran Church and run by Cheryl who operates on a shoestring budget. Like the TV show, good people turned up at key times. There were Bob and Sonja who early on donated paint for the figures and their $20.00. Then there were the good folks at Woodcraft on Sullivan road who cut the wood for the stables for free. And critical to the whole effort were the hours of good work by Harlem, whose precision sawing resulted in the creation of about 270 figures to be painted by the kids. Over a period of several afternoons in the depths of our cold dark winter, the children painstakingly painted then proudly took home their wooden figures. Figures of hope for something greater than the not always kind world around them. Just look at the face of the child pictured and know that in some small way he was touched and in his child-like way may have also touched others with God's message. Now that's worth a million bucks!
