I teach Middle School Bible. This year I decided to do our Christmas Outreach a little differently. Rather than buying something random to hand out, I asked my Turkish friend to help me by going to choose 3 homes that we could bless. He came back with ages of the kids. So, each of my students was assigned a child. They had to earn 20TL, buy a gift, wrap it, and be ready to distribute it. We were all very excited! I mentioned to the teachers about the idea. They wanted to join in as well. So we began collecting coats, blankets, food, toys. Any student who brought something could wear jeans. Soon, we had mountains, literally, of donations. They filled 4 cars/vans.
We loaded up and headed to the homes, just down the street from our school.
These folks live in a broken down area. Their source of income is to dig through our trash each night to get goods that can be recycled. Their homes and yards are basically a trash dump.
For some of my students, it is the first time they've ever encountered poverty of this depth.
The first house we visited had these little babies, in underclothes, peering out the window. I had a very hard time holding back my emotions, but didn't want to upset the kids or make the families feel badly. The day went wonderfully...I'll post more pictures tomorrow!
1 comment:
Thank you for your kindness to some of the sweetest people on earth! We lived in Turkey (Adana and Izmir) while my husband was active duty AF. They were some of the best times of our lives. We worked with local 'friends' and participated in similar activities. We truly received the blessings! God Bless you as you serve!
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