CHANGING THE WORLD- $20 AT A TIME

Today we talked about "God through us..."

I was able to celebrate some ways God was working through our high school students based on some sweet examples of this in the last week. To spark some ideas, last Sunday we decided to pass out some twenty dollar bills. (5 per service) to randomly chosen high school students and invited them to use it to change the world around them. We asked them to do it anytime between last Sunday and today.

As a result, during our services for high school I was able to celebrate with those students as they shared their stories of how God used them to change the world this last week with that $20 and then some. Here are some of those stories.

• ARIEL: I gave $20 to the salvation army bell ringer I see regularly at my favorite walmart store.

• DAVID: I bought breakfast burritos and took them to some homeless men Saturday morning. I had promised to bring them to on Friday night during the "hope for the homeless" ministry at Journey.

• DELLA: With my $20, and $5 of my own, I am giving it to world vision.
  

• SUMMER: I sent it in to World Vision to help prevent Malaria for a family with nets, and educating them about malaria/prevention.

• MARK: I bought powdered milk for a family in Myanmar.

• RYAN: Outside the El Cajon post office there is this poor women that opens the door for people. She rides her bike there every day and lives in a motel. So I came up with a idea that I pay for her room for 4 days with some help from my dad. He pitched in for it to.
  She was very grateful for this.
  

• MALIA: With the $20 you gave, I went to Costco and bought some roses and candy canes. Then today, Erica and I went to an old folks home in El Cajon, called Victoria's Special Care, where we just spent the day handing out roses and candy canes to the people living there. They loved receiving them and it was fun just seeing joy on their faces, especially when they heard that they were for FREE! They definitely enjoyed our company and it was cool just to sit and talk with them for awhile. P.S. I got to give a lady her first rose!
  
  
• ADAM: I have a friend who is going through a pretty tough time. Well the tough time has basically been his whole life. He's fairly poor so he has to live in a motel, his parents aren't together and his father is more like a brother so he used to do bad stuff like smoking pot, for a little bit he got into neonazi-ism, and his mom moved to santa cruz. so hes pretty bummed about that. But he got this sweet piece of equipment for his guitar but he needed a MIDI cable to use it, but he couldn't afford it, or put money aside because its really tight. So i decided to get one for him. And when i gave it to him he was really happy and super appreciative. it was the most heartfelt moment weve had im pretty sure. I had some left over and I put it with David's money to buy burritos for the homeless.
  

• SHANE: I decided to donate the money to a gift on world vision .com. After looking at what options i had to give something that would create an impact in someone's life, I concluded that the three i wanted to give were some ducks, seeds for vegetables and water purification tablets. I also found out that to give all three of those, i would need a lot more than twenty dollars. I called up some family friends who agreed to match my own donation and all total I turned it into 120 dollars to world vision for four ducks, water purification tablets, and seeds to help those in need to get ahead and life healthy around the world.

Great to watch God work through our students. I'm praying the spirit of this continues for months and years to come or at least throughout christmas break :)

I recently read this quote: "random acts of kindness are cool. intentional ones are cooler." I think I agree.