City Outreach Day

Each year on the weekend before Thanksgiving, our church has a City Outreach Day.

Volunteers at our church gather together to deliver Thanksgiving meals to a particular neighborhood within our community where many of the residents are at or below poverty level. 

I always knew of this neighborhood for its crime level. 

I have to admit that I may have been a bit terrified. At first.
All I could see when we pulled into the neighborhood were buildings decorated with graffiti and at that moment I thanked the Lord that Autumn isn't super great at reading yet. What was supposed to be a family doctors looked absolutely pitiful. I said a little prayer and stepped out of the car gripping the hand of my five year old.

I grabbed a turkey and a bag with sides after handing Autumn a pie. 

She ran right up and knocked on the first door as she would any other door in the world, completely without hesitation. When the door opened, we were greeted by an older man with a huge smile. He had been expecting Open Door Ministries as he does every year. He was so very thankful and wished us a blessed Thanksgiving. As the day went on, we were flashed even more smiles and heard "thank you" more times than I can count. We were invited into the homes of many people and even given the opportunity to pray with several families and share the love of our Lord. It was really heartbreaking to hear their stories and learn of what struggles they were currently facing. It was such an awesome experience. And such an important lesson for Autumn as well. We will both definitely be volunteering again next year.

Here is a photo of all of the amazing volunteers of our church once we had finished delivering over 280 Thanksgiving meals!!

And my sugar with Marisa and Alicia