Usually, the church hosts an Advent festival for the families to make crafts they take home, but this was the first year they did service projects together for various community groups like the Selma Children's Home, the Department of Youth Services, nursing homes, deployed troops and others.
Luann Williams coordinated the event and said they wanted to focus on giving. Everything made Sunday night will be given away throughout the holiday season, she added.
About 500 different items were completed during the two-hour family event, said Williams, the director of children's ministries at the church.
In one room, people were writing personal messages to deployed troops. Rhonda Mann headed up that project. Her son was deployed with the Marine Corps Reserve unit in Montgomery, but now is attached to a sniper unit in New Orleans. He'll head back to the desert in 2011, she said.
"When he was gone we realized how much support they needed, and their families," she said.
Eight members of the Prattville church currently are deployed and this Christmas they'll get a big stack of handmade cards with their care packages from Mann, who started a soldier's ministry while her son was deployed.
"It's a way for them to feel a little bit of home," she said.
Holly, 4, and Joey Gardner, 3, wanted to make baby blankets. When they finished their soup and sandwich dinner provided by the church, they were begging their mom, Carina Gardner, to go make the blankets.
Carina Gardner is from England and her husband is Canadian. They've lived in Prattville for three years and her husband is a civilian instructor at Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base.
"This is just a really nice, new way to show that Advent is more than just our family or even our church family," Carina Gardner said. "It's really good for them (Holly and Joey) to realize how lucky they are."
No comments:
Post a Comment