Kenny Garcia (2007 BVBID Grad) and the Birdwell Lane church of Christ in Big Spring, Texas, opened up their doors, kitchen and hearts this past Thanksgiving to the community.
From Kenny regarding the congregations' efforts the Tuesday before Thanksgiving:
"I think it went well overall. We fed about 100 people and right now I am studying wiht a young couple that attended the event that night. I think the best part of the event was how it helped the members. It seemed to me that they felt they were actually making a difference in the lives of those in the world. And even though we had enough food to feed probably between 350-400 they were still in good spirits. They realized that this was our first time doing something like this and we will learn from our first effort and improve upon it next year. Plus everybody who came filled out a sheet of paper so we have their information and I am in the process of following up with those contacts. I also have other ideas that are similar to this one and the members here have already begun to talk about what they would like to do in reaching out to the community. Our next big plan is goinig to be toward handing out gifts to smaller children around Christmas. So every month we are going to have one Sunday called "Gift Sunday" and on this Sunday members will be encouraged to bring at least one gift (does not matter in price and we will probably have an age group targeted) and we will do this every year and come December we will go out into the community and hand them out to less fortunate families. We have a few goals in doing these things. First, which is obvious, to reach souls. Second, I find it that most people in the community simply know the church as a building on the corner when they should know us as Christ followers or they should see Christ in us. By doing these things I believe people will see the love of Christ and God will be glorified."