Pre-Christmas note

Here are excerpts from an e-mail I sent to a supporter this week; I can't seem to find the time to update our blog, so I'll take the lazy way out.


Dear *****,

I thought I'd take a moment to share with you what we at Hilarious Givers have been up to. Remember the store inventory you helped pack up and load onto a bobtail? Tens of thousands of dollars worth of kid's clothes, grown-up clothes, kitchen items, toys and the rest have been sitting on pallets in boxes waiting to be sorted. Debra organized a group of ladies (and a couple of guys) on Saturday to sort all that precious gift in preparation for Christmas. We will be able to supplement the Christmas outreach of several local churches by providing gifts of needed clothing and the rest. I have attached a few photos of this weekend's activities.

This has been a weekend filled with His grace. We distributed a 53-foot truckload of mattresses to orphanages within our Mexico ministry from a warehouse recently so generously donated to us. Somewhere near 500 mattresses have passed through those doors on 30th street since we got the keys last month, and about 300 more are coming from Holland America Line before year's end. And as if that's not enough, Princess Cruises is donating an additional 100 mattresses; we received the first 50 on Saturday and expect the remaining 50 this week. I fully expect that we will have provided more than 1,000 comfy mattresses to deserving kids and their families before Christmas. What a blessing! None of this would have happened but for the generosity of our selfless donors. Hundreds of deserving kids are now sleeping on comfy mattresses instead of cardboard on the dirt. Praise God!

The need is unrelenting. The generosity of our donors is limitless. We feel so blessed, so gifted, to be able the be the hand of God in this endeavor, and to have been introduced to many who have had a part in making it all possible. Over and over I feel overwhelmed, fail to see the solution to problems presented, and ultimately surrender the problem to God . And over and over someone like you sees the need and steps up. The ultimate earthly reward is to see the gratitude in the faces of the kids we serve; I pray daily for the ultimate heavenly reward - to hear the words "Well done, good and faithful servant!" Bless you and the continued success of your business.