Take your Dash and turn it into a smile...

Dear Community Family,

Thank you! Another Community Impact (May 16th) with so many lives touched! The Lord has asked us to be his hands and feet and you are reaching out in so many ways! Some of you have have stepped out of your comfort zone and the Lord has blessed you beyond measure.

Saturday morning before we went out to serve I thanked you for your prayers, your condolences, cards and emails. You are truly a special group of people and I love you.

Here is what I shared on Saturday morning…
9 days ago I was in Ohio attending the funeral of my dad. There is nothing in the world that can prepare you for that experience. My dad was born in 1934 and he died in 2009. I stood at the grave site and I was looking at his temporary grave marker. The way that it is written on the tomb stone is 1934 – dash – 2009. That dash represented 74 years…and I’ve been thinking about that dash these past few days. Right now I am in my dash…and so are you.

The day before the funeral, we had a viewing from 5 – 8:00 pm. I didn’t know what to expect, he was 74, a lot of his friends had already passed away, he hadn’t worked in years…who was going to come for the visitation?

When the doors opened at 5…the people came…we stood in a receiving line for 3 hours. The line circled the room, down the hall, out the door and down the side walk…in the rain! The parking lot filled up and people were parking down the street!

In those 3 hours…I experienced some of my dad’s DASH. I was overwhelmed by the stores that I heard, and I’ll never be able to remember them all. That little DASH that represented his life wasn’t quite so little.

The stories that I heard started to sound familiar, they had one of two themes…”Your dad shared Jesus with me…” My dad was a strong stubborn man and it took him a long time to listen to God. He was in his forties when he accepted Christ as his personal Lord and Saviour...and he never stopped talking about it.

And “Your dad helped me out…” The things that my dad did for others weren’t earth shattering things…they were small acts of kindness…but BIG enough to stand in the rain to pay their respects.

Today we are in our Dash, and I have a challenge for you. Let’s take the Dash and turn it into a smile. A smile is a very small act of kindness yet it has great rewards. I want you to smile a lot today and I want you to get other people to smile back!

Thank you for spending your Saturday making a difference in our communtiy!

With much appreciation,
Nancy May
Outreach Director
Community Christian Church

18 smiles...

Hello Nancy

This is Joy reporting back. I have been driving around for the past week with two bags of clothing that I wanted to give to Goodwill. I did not have time to stop and donate the clothes.

On Saturday at the Broward Cooperative Feeding, I put the clothes to use. One man came up to our group asking for a tee shirt…I had a man’s tee shirt in my car! Then, a woman came to us asking for a pair of socks…I had socks in my car!

(2 SMILES)

Then as we were sorting the food donations, two men came over to us and told us what a good thing we were doing to help people needing food. One man wanted Vienna Wieners and the other took Vienna Wieners and a can of spam.

(2 MORE SMILES)

Also, our group smiled at each other…14 SMILES.

Nancy thanks for all your hard work putting this day together. We were all blessed to be a part of this service day.

Thanks,

Joy Stein

the smiles were almost constant

Hello Nancy,

Thank you for all that you do to reach the community. We counted so many smiles yesterday, but it was hard to keep up as some of the smiles were almost constant. We visited a small nursing home and took some pictures of all the smiles we shared with each other. The seniors really enjoyed holding the babies.

It was amazing that even a neighbor who was going for a walk with her baby when we arrived was impacted by God. She stopped us to ask why we were there and we were so happy to share with her as well. It is really amazing how our presence can affect even a neighborhood.

With love,
Alicia and Mimi

Everybody smiled all of the time.

Yesterday was a great day of serving the Community! Everybody smiled all the time. I got recycled magazines and cell phones from my co-workers and I packaged Bibles and recycled magazines to send to our soldiers overseas. I recently moved from Jacksonville, FL to Ft Lauderdale and this is my first experience working with the community. Thank you for give me the opportunity to serve as part of the Community Impact event and made a difference in our community!

Ivonne

Dash smiles

Nancy,
Thank you for your inspirational talk about the dash. I was with Kent and his wife yesterday and we recorded a lot of dash smiles every place we went to. Let me say I lost track of all the smiles we saw and photographed. We got some great interviews as well for the record. It was a wonderful way to spend a Saturday morning the Community Christian Church gang did a lot of good work. We can all be proud of the work and good will that went along with every person I saw and photographed.
Best regards and well done
Bryan Murphy

I lost count...

I have to admit I lost count after ten smiles.

Wilnise

I have their names instilled in me...

Nancy,

I first want to give you my prayers and condolences for your dad -

Then I want to say my service today was absolutely wonderful...I so felt wonderful being with those young girls at the Juvenile facility. Number of smiles...well every one of those young girls I smiled at they smiled back...It was great and such an awesome feeling.
They were so welcoming and willing to talk and listen to me...and the others.
I am hoping that we can be more involved with them. I think we can make such a difference in their lives - Teaching them the bible and sharing our own life's happening with them. I have their names instilled in me - their faces and the joy for us being there......
I thank you for the opportunity that Community Christian gives me to serve and share with everyone.

I look forward to many more and visits with this place again.

Have a blessed day!

Carol DeMeo

"GOD IS A GOOD GOD"
"GOD LOVES YOU "
"GOD WANTS TO BLESS YOU"

I was so caught up with looking at their smiles that I forgot to count.

Hello Nancy,

I wanted to update you on our service today at the Tamarac Rehab Center.

The residents and patients were all excited to see us and the smiles we received for being there was incredible and uncountable. The group today from the church were all new to serving at this center and as with anything new getting started was a little slow; however after a few encounters with the residents and patients it became easier to enter rooms and begin conversations.

We met some new people today like Max who can’t walk more than 5 feet at a time; however he never stopped smiling. We met Angelina who was bed ridden and cried and smiled when we enter the room. We held her hands and listened as she thanked us for being there and for taking time to talk with her. She never stopped smiling. We talked with people that we have met on our other visits here and they welcomed us with open arms and nothing but smiles. The best smile came when we talked to Ray Hayden and his wife as well. He and his wife both reside here and I have spoken with him on many occasions. His love for his wife is amazing and is an incredible site. He thanked us for being there and asked his wife to “Smile” for us. It wasn’t prompted and we hadn’t mentioned anything to him. He told her she was “Beautiful” and that he “Loved” her; she looked up and smiled at us.

The only time the entire group stopped smiling is when I had to inform them that the therapy dogs were not here today. No one smiled and one lady was so upset I thought she might cry. We calmed them down and talked about the dogs and previous visits with them; they began to smile over the memory of them.

It was a great visit and we are so blessed to be able to spend a few hours with them and bring smiles to their faces and ours. I know the task today was to count the smiles and I tried to count; however the count got tough to keep up with. I was so caught up with looking at their smiles that I forgot to count.

Last time you told us to look for things we hadn’t seen before and noticed; it opened my eyes to so many new things. This time the “Smile” message took on new meaning and allowed us to see the effect we have on people when we smile.

As always Nancy, thank you.

Mike, Cara, Brittany, & Heather Avery

Hey, I've got a story to tell...

Dear Community Family,

Another Community Impact (February 28th) with amazing results! You truly are the hands and feet of our Lord. We had 463 people serve on that Saturday! Our Neighborhood Food Drive collected 9,253 lbs of food! So many lives touched, Thank You!

I love to tell stories…and if you hang around me long enough…you’ll hear me say “Hey, I’ve got a story to tell…” and it’s usually a story where I’ve seen God at work.

Saturday morning before we went out to serve, I shared with you a personal story…for those that didn’t hear it I’ll share it again.

This happened a few months ago…and it’s a true story. I was running errands and I had my kids with me (2 boys). One stop on my list was to buy something for my husband at Radio Shack. Since I am technology challenged this isn’t my favorite store, however my boys love that store and want to examine every gadget. I had so many things to do, I simply wanted to run in, buy the item, and run out. On the way there in the car, I told my boys, please don’t touch anything in the store, we are going to run in and run out…run in and run out…run in and run out. That was the goal Run in…get the item…and run out.

Goal accomplished! Yeah! In the car and off to the next thing on my list, when my youngest son (age 10) asked me, “Mom, do you think that lady was homeless?” I asked him to repeat himself, because I had no clue what he was talking about. I then asked, “What lady?” and he said, “The lady outside of the store.” I asked him why he thought the lady was homeless and he said that she was digging in the trash can. I was so focused on running in and running out that I didn’t see anyone. Feeling guilty that I missed something so obvious, I tried to convince him that she must have dropped something in the trash and that she was trying to find it. He said, “No mom, I think she was homeless, she looked hungry, and she was dirty.”

Wow, how could I have missed that? The trash can was right outside of the store, it was so close. How could I have not noticed? I am an Outreach Director…I’m supposed to notice things like that!

I missed 3 things that day, I missed an opportunity to feed someone that was hungry, I missed an opportunity to serve God, and I missed an opportunity to teach my children about the hungry and homeless people in our community.

Since that day, I keep a post it note near my computer screen. It says, “God, What do you want me to notice today?” I pray that prayer often…and He always faithfully answers that prayer.

I want to challenge you to pray that prayer often, and watch for Him to answer.

Thanks again,

Nancy May
Outreach Director
Community Christian Church

People went out of their way...

Hi Nancy --

I did the Community Food Drive in my neighborhood and at my job. I could not believe how wonderful the response was!!!! People went out of their way to donate canned goods, paper products and other items. I was so happy to see the bags waiting for my pick-up on the doorsteps of my neighborhood !!!! Let's do this Community Impact again.
In God's Name,
Patti Meador