Home Visitation Hospitality Ministry
Caring for People in Need
It is not a prayer group nor a study group. It is not Boy Scouts nor is it a Dartball Team. It is a service group. The group, which has no name at all, began with three people the first week in November. The purpose of the group is to provide a Basket of Care and Concern for those people. People who have just gotten out of the hospital, who are home-bound, who are grieving over the loss of a loved one or friend, who are fighting disease, who are just plain lonely or maybe for the care-giver who is busily running errands, trying to prepare meals and trying to keep things together through a crisis in the family.
The Basket contains several types of bread in small servings, maybe some cookies or bars, possibly a few individually wrapped decaffeinated tea bags, maybe several pieces of wrapped candy … who knows what might make up a basket of goodies? Along with the basket goes a handwritten note to the recipient of the basket which tells him/her that he or she is in our thoughts and prayers and that we care about them. The note is signed "Your Good Shepherd family". (Use your church name). Only the people in the group know who is in the group … we don't want nor expect praise and thanks … we just want to help and show that we care.
If you are interested in becoming a part of this group, we will be having a recruitment meeting between services (in a designated room) on Sunday. We need help but realize that you might have questions regarding this project as it is a long-reaching one, and one that we hope will last. We need: people who are good soup makers and would commit to making a huge pot of soup each month … for instance, you might agree to provide a pot of vegetable soup on each second Tuesday morning of the month. You don't have to remain with your soup … but you can!! You see, we also need people who can help assemble the baskets. We need people who can bake mini-muffins for us on a regular schedule as with the soup schedule; we need cookies and bars … we need people who will provide us with boxes of different flavored tea-bags or candies on a regular schedule. We need medium sized to large baskets with sturdy handles to use for deliveries. We need drivers to deliver the goods. We need people to wash and iron the cloth napkins which are in the baskets to cover the food. We need people willing to provide us with zip-lock bags of all sizes, with wide-mouth quart jars, with handiwrap … you see, we need a lot of odds and ends, but we need them regularly and we need to be able to depend on the members of the group to provide the materials to make this work.
So while you might not be able to preach like Paul, you can help share the love of Jesus to some who need it the most!