All this and Dinner, too!

"Now glory be to God! by his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinintely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope. May he be given glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever through endless ages. Amen."

Ephesians 3:20-21

One of the main purposes (besides just being obedient to God) for doing Mark 10:14 Ministries and Night Out! was to be a blessing to families with special needs kids. I feel that with my insight of being a mom with a special needs child, I can "give" and minister to these families. My thought was, through this ministry, I could reach out and show God's mercy and love. NEVER once, did I think that it would be me who would be learning about God's grace and love through this ministry. But, over and over again, God has been showing me His love and kindness through the people who have graciously volunteered more than I could ever imagine.


We serve a snack during our Friday night "Night Out!" It's something that I think that we should do, but it's something that I leave to the last minute, so we have things like pretzels because that's quick and easy. I'm not much of an "organized - details" type person. I'm more of the "big picture" type. So, knowing that I want to serve a snack, and then actually getting it together, is a different story. But pretzels are good and they get the job done.


During the April's Night Out!, one of the volunteers had told me that she wanted to help me out with the snacks. I thought that was wonderful! It would be nice to have someone help out with this task. Today, after church, she approached me about the snack time for Night Out!. She said that she had really been praying about it and felt that a "snack" at 8:30 wasn't enough. She felt that with "Night Out!" starting at 6pm (and wanting the volunteers there at 5:30pm), we really needed to serve dinner and then a small snack around 8:30. So... SHE OFFERED TO MAKE THE DINNER AND THE SNACK!!! WOW!!! I reminded her of my budget for "Night Out!" (which is ZERO) and she simply explained to me that she felt that this was the direction God was leading her. That she could use her gifts and talents to bless the volunteers and kids by purchasing and preparing a meal for "Night Out!" God is so good!

I am very excited about telling families that dinner is now served! What a blessing this will be.

New Families and the News Crew, too

Last night was "Night Out!".

It caught us a bit off guard, because it has only been 3 weeks since out last "Night Out!". Last month, Good Friday fell on the 2nd Friday, so we pushed "Night Out!" to the 3rd Friday for April. Now we are back on schedule, the 2nd Friday of the month.

With the new brochures out and more and more "word of mouth", more families are hearing about "Night Out!". Last night we had four new families, which totalled 9 new kids! That was just awesome. We had a total of 16 kids last night (12 with special needs and 4 were sibs and volunteer's kids).

We were a bit low on volunteers last night. We didn't have enough to have one-on-one buddies for all the children, but it seemed to work okay because the fellowship hall, where we meet, is such a great room. We already have plans to be more aggressive in our push for volunteers next month.

One really exciting thing that happened last night was having KIMA- Action News come out to do a story on "Night Out!". The reporter said the story can be viewed on their website www.kimatv.com. It was a very short segment, but it did get the word out to more people, and that is what we wanted.

All in all, it was a wonderful night! God is so good! I am so glad that we have this opportunity to reach out to families with God's love.