Christmas Sharing at Bethany

I wish you had a 'snow globe' to peek into and see the faces of those receiving your heartfelt gifts.

The most common response I see is pure humility. They are humbled by the love of a stranger for their family. There are gasps, tears, smiles and hugs abundant.

One woman who is alone for Christmas was overjoyed with a gift bag of goodies. "Having presents to open on Christmas makes up a lot for having no family to be with. My 75 yr. old somewhat damaged and healing heart is bursting with joy!"

A single Mom with a young boy with health issues couldn't believe someone was loving on not only her son, but on her too.

Other families have received your generous gift cards in the mail - only knowing it was from a 'friend' at Bethany.

One thing they all say is 'God Bless you for doing this and tell the giver they'll never know how much this means to us'.

A single father with a ten year old son asked for help for Christmas presents. His son knew there wasn’t much money for Christmas so said to his Dad ‘because we don’t have much money instead of gifts for me can we just buy the dog a present?’  Someone stepped up and blessed this little family with all kinds of toys and food. And even the dog got presents from the giver!

A Grandmother who had custody of her young grandson because his mother was in prison wanted to prepare him that they wouldn’t have anything for Christmas this year. One of our Bethany people provided gifts for the boy. On Christmas morning the Grandmother was able to fill the tree with gifts. The little boy came out and in shock looked at his Grandmother, ‘where did these presents come from?’ His Grandmother explained that people that don’t even know him wanted to bless him because they love Jesus. She said the look on his face was total amazement. It was the true meaning of Christmas for that little boy – one he’ll never forget.

A single Mother with a little boy with medical problems humbly asked if she could get a couple of presents for her son for Christmas. A Bethany family ‘adopted’ them for Christmas and blessed them with many presents for the little boy and the Mom including gift cards for groceries. The Mom was overwhelmed and blessed by the generosity and love.

One Bethany member took a large number of tags off of the tree to fulfill gift wishes. She went to the toy store armed with a ‘spreadsheet’ of gift requests. Two women in the store saw her shopping and asked who she was buying for. She explained she was buying gifts for needy children that might not have Christmas if her church didn’t help them. The two women stopped their shopping and began to help her. They even found the store manager and told him what was going on. He immediately said he’d give her 50% off everything she was buying. She quickly turned around and shopped some more! On the way out she said ‘God Bless you’ to the store manager – he said “God has already Blessed me”.