Gift 22 ~ Three Dollar Bills / Guest Speaker

Cami almost forgot about her 22nd gift on April 9. She is in the middle of her 7:30pm women's addiction support meeting, feeling distracted and drained, and realizes she did not mindfully give a gift yet today. She is disappointed and dreads the thought of having to start over at Day 1 tomorrow. She starts rummaging through her purse, disrupting the people around her, and just then the meeting leader saves her by passing around a collection basket to cover the costs of the next meeting. She often ignores this basket, but this time she pulls out all the cash she has -- three $1 bills -- and drops them into the basket. She then realizes she really wants to support this meeting more fully, which has been a respite for her the past few weeks, and feels the energy building in her as the stays to talk to a few women after the meeting. She gets an invite from Christal to to out to dinner with a small group after the weekly meetings and feels pretty good about being more involved.

Last week at FIAT (Faith in Action Teens), the youth minister asks if I would be the guest speaker for this week's program. The theme for the meeting is Service, and he feels my service-oriented background would fit well into the program. Plus, it would be good to get more people involved in the program! I get a warm introduction and welcome and share my thoughts about the definition of service and the 4 C's of service from my perspective (Country, Career, Community, and Church) which seems to  be well received. We have such a great group of teens and adults in FIAT -- Thank You all! And I appreciate their attention, participation and questions. And of course I bring some home made chocolates (pretzels, peanuts, and Oreos) that are made with help from all my boys (again!) as well as four (yes 4!!) of their friends! After my presentation, we get right into our group's service project which is to make candy wreaths to give to those in need during the holidays. It feels great to be working together to create gifts to give especially during the holiday season!