Look for the Helpers…
Dear LFP Fam,
In recent days, one of the most inspiring things coming out the situation in Minnesota is the stories of "helpers." I've always been drawn to Fred Rogers' famous quote about this, something he learned directly from his mother about how to think about communities in crisis: “Look for the helpers. There are always people who are helping.”
This week our preschool director, Melissa, wrote some encouragement to our preschool families. I want to pass it along (below) so all of us can think about ways in which our "helping" can be part of our commission from Christ in Matthew 5 to be salt and light in the world (the lectionary text for this week).
Speaking of helping, you might also be interested in helping our Men's Ministry determine the best times and focus for our Men's connection events. Men, could you take just 2 minutes to complete this survey TODAY?
https://forms.gle/Hjap3wJdCGk7F3XM7
With joy in the journey,
Jeff
We Can All Be Helpers
We're starting our Kindness Unit and this week we're thinking about how every single one of us, including kids, can be helpers and radical sharers in the world. There are a lot of ways to help out and share resources in a community. We will focus on helping with food, books, notes, and soap in class. In class we'll learn about the Little Free Pantry outside our school on Brookside Blvd, and about how when we scoot over to make room for everyone we feel so much love around us. This week, think about how you can include helping and sharing beyond your friends and family as a regular practice in your family.
When we model this to our kids, we normalize service and care in our community. Plant the seeds now for generous and compassionate people later. When my kids were preschool age, there weren't a lot service project opportunities that could reasonably include them, so we made our own. We made muffins for neighbors who were sick, invited folks with family far away to Easter brunch, picked up trash in the park, cut down ivy from trees, made fleece no-sew blankets for new babies. The helping doesn't need to be high stakes - it needs to be genuine and generous. And ideally, it would be driven by kids noticing how to help out. Now that my boys are older, they see opportunities to help and sometimes they do. One of them built a bed for a family just moving into the neighborhood (but not before checking to see if he would be paid!).
A generous and compassionate heart is grown over time with love and lots of support.
Melissa Robertson