You may remember that my Bible study group was putting together a photo shoot for families in our area who would not be able to afford one. As of my last post on the subject, we didn't know who we would be photographing.
Three days before the shoot, we found out. It had seemed like God was leading us to a women & children's shelter but all of our calls and emails went unanswered. What to do? We kept praying.
A few days before the shoot, the phone rang. It was one of our previous contacts from the local food pantry. She had several families interested.
So we were off and running. We ended up with four families, which was far fewer than we thought we could handle.
Hmmm...God knew that our first run-thru was going to be a steep learning curve and only sent us four. He's so smart that way. All of the families were single mom's and one of the mom's had nine kids!
Two days before the shoot, a friend from our church contacted me to say that she had tons of donations of toys and clothes that she could set up so that the mom's and kids could 'shop' for Christmas.
So on the big day, we had each family come, be photographed, go inside for hot chocolate and treats, and then go shopping.
Oh my goodness....it was the most touching thing to see the reactions of the mom's when we told them there was a 'shop.'
One family was particularly touching. We noticed that the mom had dressed her kids in matching white shirts. She told us that she bought them two years ago for a family photo but then she was never able to afford one. When I told her that she could go shop for her children, she started to cry and told me that her ex-husband wasn't paying his child support and because of that, she had no presents for her kids. Wah!
While she was shopping, I told her four kids that they could go and pick out a present for their mom. {There was a different room where a shop had been set up for the kids.} Her oldest son was about 12 and he softly told me that he was saving his money to buy a Christmas tree for his mom because it was all she wanted for Christmas. He said a friend was going to help him get the tree home once he saved the money. While my brain started swimming with, "How can we get them a tree?" I urged all of them to go choose something for their mama in the shop.
As they left the room, I turned to the woman behind me and she had this awestruck look on her face, as if God had just spoken to her.
He had.
She said, "My husband and I are in charge of the Boy Scout Christmas tree lot today. We can get them a tree!" She quickly got her husband on his cell phone and made arrangements to get the tree delivered. A few hours later, he set up a tree in the living room of a very excited family.
How amazing is God! He saw the desire of that little boy's heart. He even changed the original date of our shoot to the day that a woman from our Bible study was going to be in charge of the Christmas tree lot.
Coincidence? I think not.
It was an amazing privilege to be a part of spreading some Christmas love.
