Blessing Closet~An Opportunity to Give Out of Your Abundance

Calling all couponers in the Middle Georgia area:

Do you have 15 tubes of toothpaste more than your family can use in a year or 2?  What about deodorant, shampoo, conditioner, lotion, pain relievers, etc.?  Non-perishable food, etc.?  If you have tons of extras laying around your house because of your coupon addiction and stockpiling habits and you are ready to put them to good use, here is your opportunity!

Second Baptist Church Warner Robins (SBC) is hosting several Foreign Missionaries for their Global Impact Celebration in November of this year.  They will be flying the Missionary and his wife to Georgia and then transporting them to Warner Robins where they will be staying with families in the church.  They will then spend the week answering all kinds of questions about their ministries and telling the people of SBC everything they can about their ministry.  These folks will not be Americans that are out on the foreign mission field but actual Nationals from their own country.  For example, they recently hosted an African missionary from South Africa.  He was born and raised in the country to which he ministers.

Part of what SBC hopes to accomplish while the Missionaries are here is to bless them with items that they probably can't afford, can't have access to, etc.  They also want to bless them with necessities so that the Missionary and his family can focus on ministry instead of where they might get the next bar of soap or a Tylenol, etc.  Second Baptist will be stockpiling something called a "Blessing Closet" with new clothing, shoes, computers, printers, technology accessories, TVs, CD players, projectors, new toys, toothpaste, soap, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, non-perishable food items, pain relievers, crayons, markers, school supplies, lotions, etc.  Before SBC takes the Missionary back to the airport, he and his wife will get to "shop" in the Blessing Closet for the items that they need most and everything will be at NO COST to them!  I am not sure how shipping will work out if it is necessary to ship an item back to the Missionary's home but I suspect that the people at SBC will work out something to get it to them any way they can.

What if there are items left over?  Any left over items that can be used by Lighthouse, a home for troubled teenaged girls, will be donated to them.  Any other items will be donated to the appropriate places so that there is no item not being used to bless someone or some ministry less fortunate than you or I.  Second Baptist will not keep anything.

Even if you aren't a church attender or a Christian, you can still feel good about giving.  You will be giving to folks who have, quite literally, the clothes on their backs.  Americans, even some of the poorest among us, are richer than most people in the world.  Americans, because of their awareness, are also the most generous people in the world.

Here is the who, what, when, and where:

Who: Everyone who has extra NEW items like those listed above
What: Given to the Blessing Closet to be distributed by Global Impact Celebration participants
When: Donations will be accepted between now and November 1, 2010
Where: Drop off locations are the office of Second Baptist Church Warner Robins (click link to get address off website) and _________(when I get the name of the location I will update this post)
                   **When dropping items off please let them know it is for the Blessing Closet.  If you    drop it off at SBC and Brad Jones is available then give the items to him, letting him know they are for the Blessing Closet.**

I am filling up my "Cheerful Giver" box in my kitchen already!  I have toilet paper (free from CVS), deodorants, Benadryl for bug bites, etc. already in the box and waiting for me to take them up to Brad.
I will re-post this a few times between now and then so we can remember to hold onto those extra items so we can give them away!

Standing on His promises,
Mrs. Bubba