a gift idea for you

right after graduate school was finished and we started earning a paycheck, we were faced with a gifting dilema. instead of having a few beans as an offering as a christmas gift to family, we had some actual real money.  we didn't know what to get family.  as the siblings on my side talked, we decided to pool our money for our dad and have it go towards a plane ticket to alaska (my brother lives there and he wanted to get up to see him).  We had a good sum of money from the 6 of us.  it required an envelope to hold it all.  as christmas time drew near, we became aware of a family that was in need.  my brother devin was working at the ogden DI at the time.  on christmas, as we gathered around and exchanged gifts, my dad opened his envelope.  instead of that wad of money was a note that said something to the effect of: "we had money in here to go towards a plane ticket to visit cam.  it was a good amount.  devin told us of a family he worked with. they were in need and we decided that if you taught us anything as kids, it would be that the money needed to go to that family instead. thank you for teaching us the real meaning of christmas."

it was a very touching christmas celebration as we honored my dad and his gift of teaching to us.

every year we try to donate our money we would spend on each other to a good cause.  this year i was feeling empty. as our own little family, we adopt a child from the child abuse utah program (they are in the shelter for christmas) and provide a christmas morning for them.  we were able to help out a good deal with the missionary efforts for our church a few months ago. but there was nothing screaming christmas to me.  it's tricky to get that green light feeling.

today when i woke up and got this email, i knew that this would be our family giving gift this year.  scott was on a flight with rachel a few months ago and felt really inclined to get involved with their families efforts to help send off missionaries for our church in guatemala.  you can read about it HERE.

she talked about a perpetual fund to help the people that they were worshipping with and i was head over heels with this great idea.  feel free to click HERE to read about it.

and sorry for ruining the surprise of your gift mcfarlane's, but i had to pass this on to others looking to do the same thing. merry christmas!