District President’s Challenge – Fall, 2011
South Wisconsin District – Lutheran Women in Mission
Here is a challenge for you – will you accept it?
I would like to challenge you to do a study of the words “Harvest” and “Blessings” in your Bible. As we are preparing for Thanksgiving, it is always a good time to think about the things that God is doing in your life. You will want to make a list and then spend some time in prayer thanking God for how mightily He works in your life.
I had an interesting Thanksgiving a couple of years back with my grandkids. Jack was about 8 and Jameson was 6 when we did this. The day before Thanksgiving I sat in the living room with them and we talked about how Thanksgiving was the time to remember all of our blessings and thank God for all the things He has done for us.
I had three pads of stick on notes – the small ones. Also three pencils. We each took one and began to think of what we were thankful for. Jack the older grandson started with Mom and Dad and of course GRANDMA and grandpa. But Jay’s first idea was R2D2. In case you don’t know who that is, he is one of the robots in Star Wars. Mom and Jay were decorating his room with things from Star Wars, I guess that was why he was so thankful for it.
When they wrote something down, they took the stick on note and ran into the bathroom to put it on the bathroom mirror, where ever they wanted (I suggested they leave room for people to see their faces), then they came back and got another one. I wrote some down myself and they were delighted when I wrote their names and asked them to stick them on the mirror for me.
We left them up for Thanksgiving, the next day, and for the rest of the weekend. All of our guests enjoyed looking at the notes and the boys enjoyed explaining everything to them.
Why don’t you give it a try this year. If you would like to turn this into a way to encourage mite giving, have some coins available and they can drop one in your mite box each time they put a sticker up. Then count the money and tell them how much is going to mites because of their thankfulness.
I’m sure that your life will be enriched also as you take the time to be thankful. The mite fund would be delighted to be the beneficiary of your thankfulness this Thanksgiving.
WE THANK GOD FOR ALL OF HIS BLESSINGS.
(I had so much fun with this that I left the little messages up for several weeks after the holiday and then put them into a simple scrapbook that I keep for each of them.)
Jan Dankwardt, President