Attitude of Abundance, Part I

So I’ve been attending Tuesday night dinner at the Rivers’ house.   The Rivers are a family from church; they started opening their home every Tuesday night and feeding a bunch of us young, 20-somethings who have jobs, but no kids and big families, who might get lonely sometimes, and don’t get the privilege of sitting around a family dinner table too often.  It has been so nice getting to know them better and it’s been such a blessing and allowed to grow in my trust for God’s provision for my life.  So many things have come of these Tuesday night dinners, among them this new attitude I have of abundance.  Abundance is a theme at the Rivers house; the word is on all the walls, books, mantels, and tables around. 

And now, I’ve found another writing subject: ABUNDANCE

So, one Tuesday night, Debbie was telling us about how she wanted to put together this “Random Acts of Kindness” Party.  She talked to us a little bit about her idea: several of us would gather and collect items to give away, take a very limited amount of money with us, accept little gift packets from other folks who wanted to share, get in a car, and drive around Salina for a couple of hours.  It would be an adventure to drive around Salina with an open mind and an open heart to see what the Lord wanted us to do to bless someone else that day.  She got the “Ooooh, I want to participate!” from several of us (girls – just sayin’), and so we set a date.

The morning of our “party”, we gathered in Debbie’s living room at 10 am.  We divided up all our supplies between two cars; little gift packets of popcorn and soda; envelopes with encouraging cards and packets of hot chocolate mix inside; laundry packets with quarters and little detergents; 4 dolls to give away to little girls.  The idea was to think outside the box.  We had a designated amount of money so that we wouldn’t feel pressured to provide only blessings that cost us money; it could be as simple as giving people rides or carrying groceries.  We split up into a “young” team and an “old” team, and off we went.

I was designated the driver for the “young” vehicle, which was cool, because I love to drive.  I said, “Okay ladies- so where am I going?” and we took off in the direction of the North end of town.

Our first stop was the library, and it was not a success.  We politely asked the librarians if we could leave her some of the pop/popcorn packages to hand out to families who borrowed movies from the library, and she turned us down because some of our cards read “God bless you.”  Talk about disappointing.

But, we would not be deterred!

The fire station is right across the street, so we ran across, and handed the packages to some firefighters instead.  Success!

Then we discussed where to head next.

Jenna had a specific trailer park in mind.  We drove through, looking for something that we could call a sign from God pointing us in the correct direction.  We saw one lady in a yellow coat walking; but we had already passed her, so we kept driving. In the trailer park, we saw a lady walking around looking very distressed, and we decided she was our first “bless-ee”; so one of us hopped out of the car and handed her a little box of chocolates that was in our giveaway stash.  We didn’t see much of anything else in the parking lot, other than a couple of cats, which of course gave us the idea to bring pet supplies on a future “party”. 

Back on the road, we noticed a young couple with two small children playing at the park; we stopped and gave them some of our individually-packaged cupcakes.  They thanked us with smiles. 

While Katie and Jessica delivered cupcakes, Jenna noticed her lady in the yellow coat continuing to walk in our direction! So she hopped out of the car and walked toward her to start a conversation.  Once Katie and Jessica got back in the car, we drove over to where Jenna informed us that we were giving this lady a ride.  The lady talked about how she had had a very bad night and had been in a fight with her boyfriend who “had a knife to her throat” the night before.  We took this lady back to the trailer park we were at just minutes before.  We gave her cupcakes for her and for her daughter, who she was on her way to see.  She thanked us by saying, “I wish everyone was this nice.”

We decided we wanted to hit up Walmart next, which is on the south side of town.  We were right by the I-70, so we decided to hop on the interstate.  On our way to do so, we drove past a truck stop/travel station/gas station.  We noticed a man carrying a duffel bag walking towards the store.

“Gilda! Turn around! Flip a U-ey!”

So of course, I did (legally, of course).

What we found were two “travelers” sitting on a bench outside the store.  I had five dollars in my pocket from the night before, so I went with Katie and Jessica, who together asked one of the men if they could get him anything from inside.  They took him, and I took the other one.  They bought their guy a cup of soup and a pop, while mine just wanted a fountain drink.  They thanked us by saying, “You’ve done enough, young lady.”

On our way out of the store, we ran into Jenna who had started chatting with a few other “travelers”.  They asked us if we knew of any place they could get a gas voucher, as they were trying to make it to Missouri (they did not ask us for money).  Katie said, “Pull your car up to the pump; I’ll go get my credit card.”  And she filled their tank.  There was a carfull of them, with two dogs as well.  They thanked us with hugs and high-fives.

So, back into the car, and actually onto the interstate we went.  Each time we loaded back in, there was always a couple seconds of reflective silence as each one of us thought about the person we’d just helped.  It was neat to talk about what we had just done and feel our collective compassion for each group of folks we encountered.

We arrived at Walmart, and our first task was gathering carts from the parking lot to take into the store.  We then split up the coupons that were in our stash, and took off in opposite directions to place the coupons next to the items they were for.  We also noticed that the frat from K-State Salina was holding a food drive, so Jessica spent some of our cash and some of her own to buy some items and a can opener, which the boys happily accepted.  We also left baggies of quarters on candy machines and rides for the kids, with notes saying “Enjoy”.

We counted Walmart as a success, and continued our journey.  We decided we wanted to hit a laundrymat, so we picked the one on Iron street, Speedy Wash.  On our way there, we noticed people on the sidewalks, outside of shops and stores.  We got out of the car and handed out the rest of our soda and hot chocolate envelopes, and I scared a mail-lady by running up to her yelling, “Wait!”   When she acknowledged me, I said, “We wanted you to have this” and handed her the popcorn package.  She thought it was very sweet of us.

We all went into the Laundromat and placed our baggies of quarters and detergents, and handed out more cupcakes to the patrons.  On our way back up Iron, while we were heading back to the house, we noticed we still had the two dolls, and that we hadn’t found anyone to give them to yet.  Just then, we noticed “Little girls! Little girls!” coming out of a tattoo shop with what seemed to be their parents.  We pulled over and Katie and Jessica ran out with the dolls and some more packages for the adults.  Jenna and I got to watch the reactions of the little girls who received the dolls. 

Mission accomplished, we headed back to the house and had lunch with the “old” team and traded stories. It was a really unique, liberating way to spend a few hours.