Wrap It Up

Today I did an outreach with some Vineyard folks called Wrap It Up. It's my second favorite outreach only to Turkeyfest, but this year it was different. Traditionally the church rents out a space in Tri-County Mall (a store space) and we set up stations to wrap gifts at. The store has hours during the holiday season and is staffed by a coach and team of volunteers who wrap presents. Basically as people buy presents in the mall they bring them in and we wrap up to 3 of their gifts. Mostly it's been a bunch of AARP women actually wrapping the presents combined with some kids making these little candy cane stocking stuffers. All of this just makes it more fun for me because I'm actually a capable present wrapper, and that surprises people. It's a good time...

This year the whole idea got blown up. This year we are not getting space in the mall, but we are still doing something like wrap it up. Today I went to the first of 4 "wrap it up" events that are happening this year. Some friends and I went to a home for special needs people and made crafts, iced cookies with designs, and generally hung out for 3 hours. Some of the crafts the residents made got wrapped for them to give to family members or friends for Christmas. While I was there I ended up getting to know a guy named Matt a little bit. He was at the Prom earlier this year, and remembered me from that. He works at Wendy's and likes his job pretty well. He is trying to save up some money so he can buy a Wii. He's kind of an awkward guy because he has Asperger's disease (I don't really know what that means, but that's what he told me), but once you get to know him a little bit he's pretty cool. We left the craft area because he wanted to show me his room. We went up there for a while then he wanted to introduce me to his girl friend who lives downstairs. So we went down to her apartment; her name is Sheri (sp). I hung out with them together for about an hour. I don't know exactly what Sheri's handicap is, something like muscular dystrophy or cerebral palsy, but she was so smart. I found out she has a job as a greeter at the local Y and does free lance journalism. She has had some of her stuff published in some local newspapers, as well as an article in the Enquire last year. The amazing thing was that we were talking for a while then she said "I don't mean to be rude, but I've waited all week for this game to be on- I don't know if you know this, but UC is playing for a conference championship today and I really want to watch it." As you can all imagine I was all for it. So we put the game on and enjoyed the first half before I had to go. It was a lot of fun, and though totally not wrap it up, a great outreach just the same. Before I left both Matt and Sheri asked me if I could come back to hang out with them again sometime. I think there is really something to just being with people, present in their lives that makes a difference. I heard once that whereever we go as Christians we take Christ with us, I don't know how that works out theologically, but we are deffinately better able to be His instruments out in the world than at home on the couch.

So wrap it up is a craft outreach this year. I would never have gone on a craft outreach. I wouldn't have gone on this one except my friend asked me to go. That said, I will go again. Not because its wrap it up, but because it's not. Let me know if you are interested in going next weekend. We are going to a different home. I think I am going to take some sort of easy to play game for the people that come out. That will give us something more structured to do with people while we hang out after they are done making crafts.