Small acts of kindness
Bev Jenkins, from Lowestoft Community Church, has been involved with ministries to local families for a number of years. She has recently been encouraged to see how small acts of kindness over time are beginning to bear fruit.
This week we have distributed chocolate Easter eggs, donated by our congregation, to 55 households in our town. Some of these households we have no other contact with. We also have another 30 eggs waiting to be given out at our FISH (Food In The School Holidays) session during the Easter holidays. Our congregation are very generous and give willingly it’s so nice to buy for others a treat that they may not normally have!
The blessing that it is was brought home to me recently when I went to meet a mum for the first time in a family housing unit which we work into with CAP (Christians Against Poverty) with their money management material. Our CAP team offer support to the parents who live there with money management and budgeting skills. This mum had already had support from our CAP team with her finances and really benefitted from that, especially the prayer time at the end of each session. But I was meeting her for the first time offering support from our befriending service, Friend of the Family. As soon as I told her which church I was from she exclaimed “Oh you’re the church that gives us chocolate eggs at Easter”.
This small act of kindness gave me an open door to offer so much more and this mum was beginning to build a great picture of love and support from many people doing a little thing once in a while, like putting an extra egg or two in their shopping basket.
In the Bible we read how God used people's small acts of obedience and generosity to feed the hungry, care for their neighbours, and make the way open for his salvation. There's no reason to suppose things might have changed now. Simple acts of kindness can lead to many more opportunities. What is God calling you to do for him today?