Thank you to everyone who helped make Christmas special for families in need this Christmas.  A special thank you to Suzuki of Wichita, Cricket Alley Boutique, City Life Church and Furniture on Consignment for helping promote this opportunity.  It was a very blessed Christmas for these families.

Help make this the best Christmas ever for someone who spends every other day in need.  We have hand selected families to participate in our Christmas Giving 2012.  We have 14 families that we have chosen to purchase gifts for. These families are young mothers and their children that we serve through Lady Bugg House and families we serve through Wichita Project.

We cannot make this happen without your help.

We have gift tags with an item from their wish list.  Gift tags are available at Suzuki of Wichita located at 11610 E. Kellogg or Cricket Alley Boutique located at 1820 N. Tyler Road.

You can take a tag, or two or ten and purchase new gift items for that person.  Wrap the gift, put the gift tag securely on the outside and return the package to either of these locations by December 22, 2012.

If you don’t have time to shop we can do that for you.  Mail a donation to Walking in The Reign at 6505 E. Central, #139 Wichita, KS 67206 put Christmas Gifts in memo.  All financial donations are tax deductible.

I would like for you to meet Nathan.  Nathan is a forty year old homeless man that I met in downtown Wichita.  As I walked past Nathan one Saturday as he sat on a bench watching the Veteran’s Day festivities I was curious to know his story.  I was down town with some children who are part of the Walking in The Reign ministry, my daughter and some friends.  We were handing out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that the girls at the Lady Bugg House had made for the homeless.  Jasmine, a 4th grader, walked up to the man on the bench and asked him if he wanted a sandwich. He said, “yes” so she handed him a sandwich and said “God loves you”.  On our way back past Nathan there was a stirring in my heart to talk to him. I asked him if I could talk to him.  He was reluctant but before he could answer I sat down on the bench next to him.  He told me he didn’t want to talk about how he got to this low place in life so I asked him if he could help me understand more about the homeless situation in Wichita.  He shared how the homeless in our city won’t go hungry.  The homeless go from the Lord’s Dinner to the Union Rescue Mission where they are fed or someone shows up to bring them food out of the truck of their car.  He went on to share with me though about his struggle to find a job.  He told me that he didn’t want to be homeless but that he could not find someone to hire him.  He had been forced onto the streets for the past three weeks.  He shared with me how he wanted to get back to Orlando where his family was but didn’t have the money.  I asked him if he wanted me to help him get a bus ticket.  He seemed shocked that I asked.  He was reluctant to ask me but I could see in his face that he was embarrassed by the fact that he hadn’t had a shower and didn’t have clean clothes for traveling.  I made arrangements for him to shower at the Union Rescue Mission and I went and purchased him some clothes.  Kayla, a young girl we serve through the ministry went with me to get the clothes.  She said, “Michelle, I love doing nice things for people and serving others.  It’s better than doing things I shouldn’t do.”  Not only did we get to show Nathan the love of Jesus but we got to show Kayla the heart of Jesus.  As we spent time with Nathan waiting for the bus to arrive I learned that he was a star football player at his high school. Football was his identity.  He was injured his senior year and was unable to play.  Suddenly people that paid attention to him for his talent turned their backs on him and he got involved in drugs and things he should not have.  My dad and I walked to our car to leave Nathan waiting for his bus and he ran out to the car after us to tell us thank you for taking time to invest in him.  It has to be one of my top powerful moments in life. We gave Nathan our contact information and told him to keep in touch with us but unfortunately we have not heard from him since that day.  I pray that Nathan used this encounter to change his life for the better.  I will keep praying that someday he will get in touch with us.  I praise God for moments to serve Him and for opening my eyes to see beyond the exterior of the man on the bench.

Wichita Project is collecting school supplies and back packs for jr. high students at Marshall Middle School.

Mechanical Pencils (0.7 mm lead) and refill lead
Wooden #2 Pencils
Blue or Black Ink Pens
Washable Markers
Composition Notebooks
Wide Ruled Notebook Paper
College Ruled Notebook Paper
Folders (2 Pocket, 3 Pronged)
Three Ring Binder (2 or 3 inch)
Scotch Tape
8 Tabbed Notebook Dividers for 3 Ring Notebooks
Highlighters
Protractors
Dry Erase Markers (NO PASTELS)
Glue Sticks
Kleenex
3×5 Index Cards
Colored Pencils (Box of 12)
Paper Towels
Clorox Wipes
Post-it-Notes
Hand Sanitizer
Personal Pencil Sharpener
Construction Paper
Ruler (Standard/Metric)
Erasers (Large and Pencil Toppers)
Calculator (Pre-algebra-Standard) or (Algebra-Scientific)

Items can be dropped off at Suzuki of Wichita 11610 E. Kellogg Monday-Friday 9-8 or Saturday 9-6 or Lady Bugg House 1501 N. Fairmount Monday or Thursday 12:30-4:00.  Donations are accepted until August 16, 2011.

Questions?  Call 316-440-2844 or walkinginthereign@gmail.com.

We could spend our whole life trying to figure out why some people are poor and needy and others have great wealth.  We could find many things to blame for this and we could reason in our minds justification that people being poor is their own fault.  But God calls believers to help those who are helpless, hungry and poor regardless of the reason.  God counts on believers to help those in need.

Our city is full of children who are homeless.  In fact, this issue is so much greater than we realize.  We picture a homeless person as an older man, usually a drunk, who sleeps downtown when the reality is there are probably a far greater number of homeless people who don’t fit that description.  They are children, teenagers in our city who have been abandoned by family and have no where to go.  They hop from sofa to sofa begging friends to let them stay the night at their house sometimes being told no and having no where to go.  They end up having to drop out of school digging themselves deeper and deeper into poverty.

Something must be done.  That is what Wichita Project is all about.  We are about serving the needy in our community.  Helping families with needs so they don’t end up homeless.  Helping those who are already homeless find a safe place to stay.

A great read for our call as believers in helping the poor is “Generous Justice” by Timothy Keller

A young man who is very dear to us has bounced around for most of his life because his father is in and out of prison, his mother is recovering from a drug addiction and has little means to provide.  They recently found themselves in a homeless shelter but the mother failed to show up one evening so they were not allowed to come back and couldn’t get their belongings until after the weekend.  What must this young man be thinking?  Does he think this is how life is supposed to be?

I was taking groceries to a single mother with six children and the kids were all fighting over who was going to get the biggest candy.  The oldest boy said, “I wish I was white”.  I asked him what he thought that would do for him and he said, “I wouldn’t have to listen to all this, blah blah I hate you.”  I quickly informed him that the color of his skin had nothing to do with making his environment different.

A young mother called me because her mother had asked her and her two children to move out of her house but they had no where to go.  She didn’t want to impose on her grandfather because he was just recently diagnosed with cancer and was going through chemo.

Another family called us last Sunday because they didn’t have any groceries.

The needs around us, in our own city are great.