Home School Curriculum Experts

One of the things I am thankful for is the opportunity to volunteer. As a homeschool family, we are particularly blessed because we have the flexibility to participate in volunteer projects as a family. This week my kids and I volunteered at a drop-off center for Operation Christmas Child, a program run by the organization “Samaritan’s Purse.” Organizations or an individual can fill a shoe box with toys, hygiene items, writing utensils, candy and other items, then choose the age and gender of the child they want the box to be sent to, and Samaritan’s Purse will see that it is delivered to a needy child in another country. We have sent boxes for several years, and it is one of my kids’ favorite ways to volunteer, and to celebrate Christmas. They had such a good time picking out gifts, and working on fitting as much as possible into their shoeboxes. We then were able to go to the center and pack shoeboxes that other people had donated, which will be shipped to a distribution center before they are sent overseas.
I think one of the best ways to teach children gratitude for what they have, as well as compassion, it to have them actively volunteer. There are so many opportunities and many areas of need; and as my children get older I would love for them to each choose a volunteer venue that most interests them. During my childhood and teenage years, my mother was the director of nursing for a nursing home, and I spent much time over the course of many years visiting with the patients, talking with them about the lives they had lived, and just getting to know them, or even just holding their hand. I see so many kids, and even adults, who are afraid to go to nursing homes, afraid of the smells, of dying, of patients with physical problems or dementia. I am thankful that, because I grew up around and loved so many older adults, I have never had that fear. My siblings and I have talked many times about how we love the elderly and have a heart to serve them.
I want my kids to have that – not just about elderly people, but about all people in need, who may not look like them or talk like them, or even smell like them, but are nevertheless people worthy of love. They will never get that until they get their hands dirty, until they see the conditions and feel the pain, until they meet a need. So many times I try to shelter my kids from that which is unpleasant, but Jesus spent his life around that which was and those who were unpleasant, either in appearance or in lifestyle or behavior. He had no place to lay His head, he spent time with beggars, with homeless, with prostitutes, with sinners and the downcast and the down-and-out. Life was not warm and pleasant and protected for Him most of the time. At a conference I attended recently, the speaker urged her listeners not to let our comfort keep us from our calling. That really hit home for me – I hold so tightly to my comfort that I let it define and put parameters around my calling. May that challenge my heart as I seek to serve even the least of those among us, not just in this season of Thanksgiving, but in all of life.