Food, birthday treats and love! Who can argue with that?
Most family get-togethers include food, don’t they? Family favorites, cultural food, or new recipes found on Pinterest or Facebook! We recently had a volunteer cook a delicious meal for our maternity home residents. The food was enjoyed, laughter made its way around the table and the evening ended with a wonderful Bible study. This brought our women together. Great tasting food and spiritual food have a way of doing that. We are family here at Redeeming Life Outreach Ministries’ maternity home and we want to go through life experiencing family together.
We celebrate birthdays! Because many of the ladies who come to us have very little (if any) family support, we make a point of celebrating the special events in their lives. Birthdays, graduations, promotions, and of course, the birth of their babies. To celebrate their birthday, each resident chooses their favorite foods and cake for the evening meal and then receives a gift card to their favorite store.
The most recent birthday celebration was made especially exciting by turning it into a surprise party! We sent the birthday girl out of the house while the others put out decorations and waited for the return of the unsuspecting birthday girl. When she opened the door, the room was filled with shouts of "SURPRISE!". You see, it is very important that our residents feel loved, valued, and recognized.
Love isn’t always shown with gifts and material things. However, It is very often mentioned that people need their basic needs (food, clothing, shelter) met first before they can receive the Word! Love is shown through teaching, guiding, and correcting. Love is shown through the Word and only true love is found through Jesus. Christian organizations like us are about changing hearts. They only way to do that is through the Word! While we are here to take care of their earthly needs, the end result is that they know about their home for eternity. You see how this all fits together?
The time our house manager spends with these women, the planning involved by our Board and Executive Director, the generosity of volunteers bringing a meal or a bassinet, and the money given by the community around us ALL help with the end result. All of these activites pour into the hearts of these women. Really there are many ways to a woman’s heart - let’s be sure we continue to choose love - the best way!
Redeeming Life Outreach Ministries is a pro-life ministry in Sanford, FL. We support our mothers whether they choose to place their baby for adoption or to parent. Either way, we walk alongside them in their journey. Every woman who calls Redeeming Life home will find help, love, and support. Redeeming Life Outreach Ministries, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, is a Recognized Service Organization (RSO) of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.