November 21, 2021 – Our Jackson store location is under a low-income senior apartment complex. We get to see many of them every day as they come out to the street for a smoke and/or to socialize. As we have gotten to know them we have also started to care for them.
Recently 3 different gals have lost family members unexpectedly in the past week. (I am almost afraid to ask them how they are doing now) One a sister, one a brother, and one a son-in-law. Often, we find out when we ask how are they doing and they say “not too good” to which we reply what’s wrong? When they tell us, I offer our condolences and then ask if we could pray for them. They always say yes – so I stop right there on the street or in the shop and pray for them.
Since one of our objectives is to have a ministry to folks around our stores and in the communities, we are in. We have been praying and dreaming about what we might do with the Seniors who are all around us. We have talked with one of our partner churches in Jackson to help us put on a Christmas event for any and all the folks in the center. We plan to do it on December 8th in the evening and will have light refreshments, a Christmas craft, a sing-a-long time, and the reading of the Christmas story with a short devotional to follow.
We plan to also invite any who would like to do this again to come to an event in January and from there our prayer is we can start a weekly Bible Study with any interested. Pray that this outreach has an impact and helps us build bridges to folks who need to know the love of God in a real way.
Continue to pray about our support and pray that we might have some extra year-end gifts to get our account with our new agency up to the balance we need to have it at.
And pray for the stores – we are still having some staffing issues and pray that sales a good this season so we can continue to help the folks we are partnering with.