First let me say thank you to all of you who have responded to the Match My Gift campaign. Since we launched this drive last week, we are almost a third of the way toward our $15,000 goal!!! We are so appreciative.
Now let me share some information about this past week. It has certainly been one I think all of us would want to leave behind. Nonetheless, we have seen so many wonderful persons do their best in trying circumstances and I for one want each of them to know hat we DO notice and we say THANK YOU!
We continue to get requests for PPE medical supplies. When we have them, we gladly share. One of the clinics we tried to assist this past week was a children’s clinic. They were seeing some very sick, very afraid children and parents. The staff of the clinic continued to work with all of these patients, providing the best of medical care. However, the staff of nearly ten persons was sharing a single mask. When we got the call for help, remember, I’m still in quarantine from my India “adventure.” But our Associate Director, AJ Kamer, was able to respond for us all. We shared all the masks, goggles, and face shields we could, leaving us depleted.
The physician who received the small amount of supplies let us know that it was like Christmas time for the staff when they opened the box of supplies and ALL were thankful. Indeed, that was great to hear and made us feel good that we could help. And if that was the end of the story, it would be enough. But it was not.
Later that same afternoon, before the closing of our daily operations, you know way back when volunteers could come and go freely, one of our volunteers was emptying a box of donated supplies which had not yet been placed in inventory. Imagine the joy when he opened the box and found almost the exact number of masks we had just given away. Now that was a Godwink for sure!!
It is a good reminder for us as a people of faith. And it sent me back to read Matthew 6:25-34 ESV:
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”
May we all find peace and hope in the midst of this time of anxiety.
Dr. David C. Lewis, Executive Director