pearls

WARNING: long post ahead hehe

so we had the big outreach down in Winton Hills this past Sunday and is was awesome! We passed out 300 Thanksgiving meals to families who can't really afford to buy a nice dinner. We had a service and like 400-500 people showed up....it was pretty sweet.

background info: a while ago my church started this group called "Church without Walls"...anyone can help out...basicall what they do is get out of the church to do something for the community, they have fed dinner to all the firehouses in Fairfield, hosted a dinner for the families of soldiers in Iraq, and worked different shelters/homes all around Greater Cincinnati.
One specific place in Winton Hills, specifically the apartments called Winton Terrace. Our church has kind of adopted this community. We have done several things like have big parties, pass out school supplies, have a grocery give-away, and most recently these thanksgiving meals. This was the first time we actually had a type of service.
We needed a place to have it, so we offered to rent the elementary public school building....the answer started out as "that's out of the questiong, especially for religious purposes"...then God worked and it became "you can use it for free, we'll even pay the extra money for the janitorial staff, etc." *God still works miracles.*

I love kids...so before it started I just walked around and played with kids. "My girls" were all so precious. One little girl in particular moved my heart...she was 3yrs. old and after a few seconds she was my buddy and clung to me. I had on a pearl bracelet and I noticed her eyeing it. So I took it off and gave it to her to play with. She examined it and played with it for a little bit and then noticed it was stretchy! so doing what all little kids do, she began to pull it and stretch it until....
oops.
yeah, the pearls all fall, rolling on the floor...
in that instant, was a choice...let the ruination of a $1.50 bracelet destroy my witness, or shrug it off realizing the unimportance of it to the kingdom..
(ok so I dramatized that a little lol)
so I decided to make it a game....who can pick them up the fastest!
of course I let her get all but a few....
she cradled this handful of pearls in her hand like it was a buried treasure she had spent her little life searching for...she looked up at me with mischevious glance...
"Yes, you can keep them"
then I saw the biggest smile appear...her mom carefully helped her zip them in her coat pocket, safe and sound...

after worship I went and sat down on the floor in front of her (she was sitting on her mom's lap)...all of sudden she jumps down and plops on my legs *smile*

I pulled my hair around and she caressed in her hands and "brushed" it, giggling...

then she saw my necklace...it was one of my homecoming necklaces...so I took it off for her to see....she stared at it in her hands and held it to her neck and said "on! *smile*"

as I was getting ready to leave, she looked at me and pointed to the necklace....
"You can have it"

She smiled.

I got to pray with her mom...she was 23 years old, a single mom with 2 girls & two boys (ages were about: 1, 3, 5, & 7)...wow....