Lord have mercy, I am so blessed...

This has been a great week for me, I have been able to hang out with folks from all different facets of The Salvation Army in Charlotte - DHQ, Area Command, the Corps and our 'hood and it's been great. We're all building the Kingdom together - we're winning the world for Jesus starting in Charlotte, NC.

We've also had many opportunities around our community to help others and encourage them. It's not rocket science, trust me. You can do stuff like this wherever you're at, too. It's like Mother Teresa said:

"If you cannot feed 100 people, then feed just one."

This whole thing started out by taking 4 of our neighbors to a rather impressive buffet back in January in a borrowed van and then following up by inviting people in for tea, offering rides to the grocery store, a loaf of bread to tide folks over until food stamps came around and it has all just evolved from there.

This week, we've had some great experiences. I wish that you could be here to get a taste for how something that really takes such a minor effort on our part makes such an IMPACT on the lives of those around us...

• Visitation to one of our former neighbours (the first person we met!) with her newborn baby
• ride to children's emergency for a mom and her kids after one of them busted his front teeth out doing tricks on his bike
• having a spontaneous ice cream party Sunday afternoon with some kids that were just hanging out over at our house
• homebaking a humongous cake for our birthday ministry and celebrating a young man's life
• opening our cupboards and tightening our belts so that our neighbour and her family could eat this week
• trips to Wal-mart. Many trips to Wal-mart. Still in a borrowed van. haha.
• opening up the Community House (or the 'funhouse' as it is locally known) so that kids can come and laugh and play and read and talk about their day
• buying gel shoe inserts for a neighbour who just got a job on an assembly line where she's on her feet on concrete for ten hours a day
• getting our behinds whipped playing basketball with the kids (!)
• making a way for one of the kids to use his gift of singing as worship at the corps on Sunday
• remembering someones name is Nathaniel instead of calling them Fatboy like everyone else
• visiting lonely people, and bringing homebaked muffins
• cleaning refuse (human and otherwise) out of the local crackhouses
• killing bugs found in the shower. oh wait. that's just what I do for Rob. (!)
• picking kids up. hugging them. using our words to bless them and build them up and give them hope and comfort them in their distress

So for real, it's not rocket science. It's an overflow. This whole love in action thing is pretty easy to do once you get started and then, before you know it, you're looking for opportunities to give your stuff away, and share whatever's left with the people around you.
It's ministry, but there's more to it - we're captivated. We're preoccupied with loving others. We're committed to praying for them and being active in their lives, even when it's messy.

"I will rise now, and go about the city; In the streets and in the squares,I will seek the one I love.” Song of Songs 3:2 KJV

We're searching for Jesus in the face of every snotty-nosed,dirty faced, potty-mouthed, hungry, hurting little kid and adult.
He's here. Come and see for yourself...