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Organized Acts of Kindness (O.A.K.s)
We have all heard
of “Random Acts of Kindness” and how the tiniest effort can have a
profound positive rippling affect. At Leave a Trace, we
fully believe in random acts of kindness, but we also think that you can
plan intentional acts of kindness to help build your confidence in
sharing your faith with others.
Stop back here
often to read about new examples of people Leaving a Trace on the world
through OAKs.
Garbage ~
Materials needed:
Garbage Bag, Rubber Gloves
There are days that I
am struck by how careless we are with creation. Take a moment to
look around and consider just how amazing the world is. There are
thousands of species of bugs, birds, and plants. There are
hundreds of different natural materials that we use to build our homes,
places of work, stores, and the furnishings that go inside. Have
you ever thought about the diversity that can be found in foods?
Not to mention the hundreds of different seasonings that are available
to prepare our food?
The truth is I can go
on and on with this train of thought and some days I do. God is
truly amazing, complex, and way too much for me to fully grasp.
But some days I am so self-occupied that I barely notice, let alone
remember to thank God for the intricate creation He gave us to care for.
Right now my youngest
child is a preschooler. One of the lessons we have been working on
with him is making sure he puts his garbage in the garbage can and not
just dropping it on the ground. Like any young child, he tests the
limits of the rules given him. I have found him a number of times
looking at a candy wrapper, scrap of paper, or even tissue that has
fallen to the ground. He will quickly look up at me with
questioning eyes, wondering how I will respond. (Don't we do that
with God all the time?) And sure enough he is asked to pick up the
garbage and dispose of it properly.
I must confess though,
there are times that I do not do as I teach. There are times when
I am climbing out of the car, my hands full of lunch boxes, bags, and
other paraphernalia and some small scrap goes flying away, or even lands
at my feet. And there are times that I look around to see who is
looking and then choose to ignore it. Usually it is out of
frustration or exhaustion, but sometimes there is no reason at all and
most times there is absolutely no acceptable excuse. Have you ever
done something like this?
Recently it has stood
out to me just how often this scenario or a similar one must play out in
the parking lots all around our town. It seems that every time we
get out of the car I stop my preschooler from picking up someone else'
garbage (he's assimilating that lesson well) and tell him that we need
to get gloves to pick it up (I'm a minor germ-a-phobe.) Then I
think to myself that, that would be a wonderful OAK!
It would be so God
honoring to get together with friends, a small group, or family, pull on
the rubber gloves and start cleaning up. We will never be able to
keep up with all of the misplaced garbage on our own, but maybe, we will
make an impression on others and people might think a bit harder when
something flies out of their car. Maybe they will make the effort
to collect their own garbage next time. And just maybe some will
also stop leaving those horrible little sample cups in the grocery store
carts too!
Donna 5-17-10
Serving Hot
Chocolate ~
Materials needed:
Carafe, Hot Chocolate, Hot drink cups
At our Secret
Servants Youth Group we decided it would be really nice to make hot
chocolate and take it to one of the many different ball fields in our
town. We wanted to just do something nice for the parents that
were sitting on the side lines, for no reason other than to be nice.
I asked all the
kids to wear their youth group t-shirts so that people would know that
we were with the church. As we arrived at the first fields we saw
that there were no games happening so we decided to drive about 4 miles
to the next field, where we were, once again, disappointed to see no
games (it had rained for the past 24 hours and the fields were still
wet.) So we talked about going back to church and serving the hot
chocolate to other youth groups or to Bible studies that were happening.
At the very last
second, as we were driving by a field that we were a bit leery to go to
(for no other reason than they are the more “professional” field around
with the concession stand and all), we made a quick decision to try it.
We parked and got out of the car and I started pouring cups of hot
chocolate to hand out.
All of the teens
were really nervous (and I was too). Later we asked them why and
they said simply because it is hard to be rejected. And we were
rejected! Quite a few people, especially at first, simply said no.
They looked at us like we were crazy. Quite a few people offered
us money to pay for the hot chocolate and a number of people wanted to
know why we were doing it. One woman even asked if we were handing
it out because we had leftovers and when I told her that we just decided
to bring some over, she genuinely looked touched. At the same time
we got a number of people who refused to even make eye contact with us.
It took a while,
but we finally were able to hand out all of our hot chocolate.
During our debriefing time with the teens afterwards we asked them if it
was easy or hard to do. They all said it was hard. And it is hard
to step out of the norm and share a bit of yourself in a fallen world.
We also asked the kids if they could do the same thing if we asked them
to go and give a bit of Jesus out at the ball fields. That is when
one beautiful young lady said that we can give out a bit of Jesus by how
we behave. I am always amazed at the wisdom of our youth.
One lesson that I
took from the evening is how amazingly difficult it is for people to
accept a free cup of hot chocolate. I think it gives some insight
into how hard it is for people to accept the free gift of eternal life
from Jesus.
Donna 4-1-10
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