Making a List

Last Saturday was our the culmination of our HPC Toy Drive, the delivery of Christmas toys to over 200 families in Baton Rouge. That doesn’t include the toys sent out at Donaldsonville, St. Francisville or our Spanish campus, all of which totaled about 2000 toys.

The Toy Drive started a couple months ago when HPCers started buying toys for needy families. Over the next eight weeks the toys were collected, sorted and packed for various groups and families. By Saturday morning the Annex parking lot was covered with toys, maps and Christmas cards. Dozens of volunteers showed up to deliver gifts to families across the city.

The goal of the Toy Drive, like most of our outreaches, is twofold: to meet the physical needs of people who need help, and to demonstrate the unconditional love of Jesus Christ. Our volunteers not only put gifts into their hands, they had the opportunity to talk with them, pray for them and remind them that they’re not forgotten.

One of our volunteers knocked on a door and found an eight year-old babysitting her infant sister. They were waiting for dad to come home, but nobody knew for sure when that would be. During their visit, the volunteers delivered the toys and then led the 8 year-old in a prayer of salvation. Praise God. An interesting side-note of this story is that the volunteer almost didn’t come that day to help out. Her sister is battling cancer, and the volunteer wasn’t in the Christmas spirit. She decided to show up only because HPC had been delivering meals to her sister; she thought that since HPC had stepped up, she would too. Because of that decision, there’s now one more name in the Book of Life. What a gift.

It’s easy to get tangled up in the materialism of Christmas, but what it all comes down to is salvation. Jesus’ entire purpose, from His birth to His death, was to make a way for sinners (you and me) to be reconciled to God. I can’t think of a better way to honor His birth than by bringing the gift of salvation to others.

Merry Christmas and all glory to God!