Thankful for Thanksgiving outreach

Today was an incredible day. It's a Thanksgiving Martha and I will remember for a long time. More than 50 volunteers helped make this outreach so successful. We have never had so many volunteers. It was awesome to have so many people with servant hearts working together as the Body of Christ to share the love of Jesus with so many people.

As always is the case with a Love In Action outreach, there were volunteers from a variety of churches. There were volunteers from Harvest Church in Dothan, First United Methodist Church in Dothan, First Baptist Church in Dothan, Southside Baptist Church in Ozark, Ala., and The Potter's House in Enterprise, Ala.

Our goal was to serve 250 dinners. We ended up with 358 dinners. We served turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, green beans, sweet potato casserole, peas, carrots and a variety of desserts.

We delivered 100 dinners to Mama Tina's Mission House, then went out into the toughest and most poverty-stricken neighborhoods in Dothan. In addition to serving dinners to hundreds of people, we also prayed for many people. Many of them asked us to pray for them. We served and prayed with the homeless, gang members, prostitutes, drug dealers and users, good people who live in dangerous areas, mothers, children ... all kinds of people. We wanted them to know that Jesus loves them and so do we.

An added blessing was Dave and Bryan Albertson volunteering with us. Dave and Bryan are the homeless men I wrote about in previous blog entries. They wanted to be involved. They have seen the love of Jesus poured out on them this week, so they wanted to be part of the outreach and serve God. They did a great job.

Tomorrow we are going to put them in a local hotel for the next week. That will get them out of their tents and into a room where they can get some good sleep, shower, stay warm, and be safe. Dave is continuing to look for work. Bryan is working at a fast food restaurant. I believe it will only be a matter of time before they are in their own place.

Thanks to everyone who volunteered today. Thanks to everyone who prayed for this outreach. Thanks to everyone who cooked and gave financially to make this outreach possible. A special thank you to First United Methodist for opening their church to us and allowing us to use their kitchen and fellowship hall. We couldn't have done this outreach without their generosity. Also, a special thanks to our home church, Harvest. About 40 of our volunteers were from Harvest.