Giving

With the holiday season upon us, we are trying to teach Madison the importance of giving. Luke is still too young to understand, but Madison is really starting to get it. Our church put out an Angel Tree with kids' names on it, provided by the Salvation Army. We decided to get two names off of the tree, a boy and a girl, to represent our kids. We picked our two names, and after church, we stopped at Wal-Mart to shop for the kids. We spent a lot of time explaining to Madison what we were doing. Here's her take on it:

"We're buying clothes and toys for the little girl and the little boy because if we don't they won't have food to eat, clothes to wear, or toys to play with."

We picked a little girl with similar interests of Madison's, although this little girl didn't specify anything princess related (but, we did get her a little princess backpack). We let Madison help pick out some clothes for her and "kitchen stuff" for her too. Madison loved it and has been asking since when we're taking it to her. Now, we've been explaining that the church will take it to her. She's very interested to know about this little girl, and we've explained that it doesn't matter....she needs things, and it's our job to help when we can. Jesus helped people, and we should too, we tell her. We did the same thing for the boy we picked out, and while picking out boy toys wasn't as fun for Madison, she still enjoyed it.

She's already asking about helping other kids, and we told her we'd do it again next year. She wants to get this year's little girl a bike, and we told her that she apparently doesn't need a bike. Maybe next year, we'll try to pick a kid who needs a bike.

Here are her picks, all bagged and ready to go to the "kids who need lots of stuff."

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Our other giving story regards the soldier Edward is caring for in the hospital. That soldier was supposed to have a medical evacuation today, but the Air Force can't get a plane here to pick him up. It looks like he will be in the hospital here until Monday when he'll be transferred across country to an Army hospital at his base. In that same spirit, after lunch today, I explained to Madison we were going to make him some cookies since he could now eat solid foods, along for another soldier who went into the hospital today. She really enjoyed helping me and kept saying, "These cookies are for the soldier who broke all of himself. He broke his tummy, so these cookies will help it get better."

She did ask if we could keep a couple cookies, to which I said yes...we did make a double batch for a reason!