October's Serving Day

This month I really wanted to make sure we focused on our local area and also served in a way that was more part of our day to day life. This is because I am passionate about Little B learning to serve. I really REALLY want her to have a servant heart so that no matter what she does in life she thinks of others and how to serve them. What came apparent though, after having her, is that she follows by example. In EVERY way. Seriously - it is scary sometimes. This is such a powerful way of teaching.

So what did we do? We went around and picked up rubbish!

I LOVED this serving opportunity. I think because it was local, simple, part of our normal family life and provide an opportunity to teach.

Awesome new idea I know (haha) but it just goes to show how simple serving can be. This is definetly not in the too hard basket for most of us.

In our family, since day light savings, we have often been out for a walk in the evening after dinner. So one evening we took along a plastic bag and picked up rubbish together. As we went we talked with Little B about why we were doing it and how Jesus loves everyone. Pretty simple.

Since I am so excited I even got some pictures of our adventures...

 

Operation Christmas Child

I am just going to say it out front - this post is a bit of a cop out. While I totally support the idea of Operation Christmas Child, it is not  to me the idea of serving for our family. Yes it can be to others, don't get me wrong, but for me it just feels too easy. One of the reasons I started this blog was so that my daughter meets those she is serving.  This is a about local mission (though I am more passionate about overseas mission, discussion topic for later).

I post about this though because I do think it builds a servant heart. Not everything we do needs to be 'out there and in the community'. I think we also need to show our daughter what serving looks like in different contexts. Operation Christmas Child was perfect for that.

While I did not take a picture of our box we made (for some gorgeous 2-4 year old girl in the world) here is a picture of all the boxes we did from our church - pretty impressive!

What is actually extra special for my little girl is that her very own Auntie lived in an area for a year who received such boxes. So we can  tell her first hand what happens to the box and the people who recieve it. That, in a way, makes her closer to know those she serves.

So what did we put in our box? Well since our little girl is of a similar age we choose things that she enjoys to play with. I also chose one of her soft toys to include that she has never played with. In that way she was giving something up (but it was still new like the guidelines said!)

I think as Little B gets older this exercise we will be able to use more as a teaching tool than this year.