pat loughery

On Valentine’s Day we gave out bags of goodies to the residents of a trailer park in our area.

Today we did round 2 in the same neighborhood. Nine of us handed out 31* bags of groceries: a pound of hamburger, a couple of cans of good soup, a loaf of bread, some bananas and apples, a few packs of oatmeal. Even though we bought most of our stuff at Costco, we bought quality stuff – no Kirkland brand anything, Progresso and Paul Prudhomme soups, really good bread, etc.

Our “script” was simple: “Hi, we’re from Mt. Si Vineyard, and we want to give you a bag of groceries to bless your day. Enjoy.”

We also included two cards: One, a stock servant evangelism card like these, with text like this:

Yes… it really is free!

We hope this small gift brings some light into your day. Its a simple way of saying that God loves you – no strings attached. Let us know if we can be of more assistance.

And I put together a really quick (i.e.cheesygraphics) postcard invitation to Easter and the potluck that we’re having afterward.

*31: Well, there’s 31 trailers in the neighborhood, and we had five people thank us but tell us they didn’t want the groceries.

All in all it went well. Our team started out nervous (especially those who hadn’t done this before), but got into it. No real negative experiences, even with the people who didn’t want the groceries.

Of the three residents that I was most interested in seeing again, two were gone this week. One was home, and said that after last time through he had wanted to check out our church. The lady who last time had a nasty black eye didn’t come to the door, but when we walked by later we saw that grocery bag gone (we just left the bags on the doorknobs for folks who didn’t answer). The Asian woman who was most receptive and most touched last time wasn’t home.

Our goal is to serve our neighbors in very practical ways. A grocery bag certainly does that. It also shows them that there are Christians who love them, who want nothing from them. (I found it interesting that another local church – a very good one with a pastor I like – had been in the neighborhood as well, leaving doorhanger ads. They’re 200 or so iin size; I’m sure that most neighborhoods in town got an ad.) I hope they get the message that Jesus is alive and busy loving them.