Around December 21 I found out that a very good friend from my time in London was diagnosed with a brain tumor. My heart broke! She had a biopsy on December 24 and has been moved to a skilled nursing facility. The doctors said that due to the advanced state of the tumor she only has 1-3 weeks to live. I am so glad that her son and daughter are with her. I feel a bit helpless being across the country. Today I sent her a message expressing my love for her and my gratitude for her friendship.
Today I made some Kiva loans and then sent gift cards to my children and some of my older grandchildren so that they can make loans.
Kiva is a non-profit organization with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. Using the internet and a worldwide network of microfinance institutions, Kiva lets individuals lend as little as $25 to help create opportunity around the world.
The thing I like about Kiva is that 100% of the money I loan goes to the recipients. Kiva does not charge the micro finance institutions it works with interest. The money necessary to run Kiva is donated separately. With each loan I make I can choose to donate to Kiva’s operating expenses or not. When my loan is repaid I can choose to re-loan the money or I can have redeposited into my Paypal account and I can use it how I want. I always re-loan the money.
Today at church are speakers were Jacqueline Pendleton and Karsten Taylor. They are both young people in our ward who have recently returned from serving missions in very different places. Jackie served in Finland and Karsten served in Little Rock, Arkansas. I decided to write letters to some of the missionaries currently serving from our ward. I wanted to let them know how much I appreciate their willingness to serve and their desire to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with others. I am sure I will come to appreciate their service more as Rick and I begin serving our mission in June.
My friend Becky had knee replacement surgery recently and I have had such a busy month that I haven’t taken time to call or visit. I have been prompted to check on her, but the demands of each day took over and I would forget. Today, I deliberately stopped what I was doing and called to chat with her for awhile. I don’t like counting things I should be doing or always do as part of The Birthday Project, however, today I made a deliberate choice to stop procrastinating and do something.
On Sunday, we had a special musical program celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. I was so touched by the beautiful presentations that I finally took time to write thank you notes to some of the participants. I am so grateful for people who have musical talents and their willingness to share them.
Wow! It is so easy to get caught up in spending time with family, cooking and cleaning. Â I am spending time serving and doing good, but nothing that I don’t ordinarily do so I don’t want to count it. Can I count staying up until 12:30am washing towels so my son’s family would have clean towels the next day? Not something I do everyday…not something I had to do…something I deliberately chose to do. Yes, I’ll count it!
Today I took some of my children and grandchildren to a small nursing facility to sing Christmas carols. Pam Jackson, a friend from church lives there and I heard that they were looking for groups who would want to come and carol. Pam was living in Humble, TX when we first moved there in 1978. It was a great experience and I stopped to visit with Pam for awhile. It touched me so much when she told me how concerned she had been about me and my cancer. She told me how she had written me a card and and couldn’t find my address, so she ended up tearing it up. I plan to go visit Pam on a regular basis. Singing and seeing the reaction of the residents to our little ones made me smile.
We have three missionaries serving in our ward right now. Their apartment is walking distance to Chick-Fil-A and since they are on bikes, I decided Chick-Fil-A gift cards would be a great Christmas gift to give them today.
Today the act of kindness planned was changed. I had an opportunity to spend some quality time with two of my granddaughters. We went shopping for my gift to one of them, a leotard for gymnastics that she needed to try on. Then the other granddaughter wanted to shop for a gift for her younger sister. She is a very generous girl. I also took them to lunch at Wendy’s not planned but very much a good thing to do.
One of my friends has a sweet daughter serving a mission for our church in California. My friend sends me a weekly update from her daughter so I get to hear how she is growing and about all the good things she is doing. Today I sent her a little Christmas gift. It made me smile!
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