Too Much Blessings

One of my favorite nights every year is the Emerge Christmas Party. (For more details on the Emerge Program, please visit the Emerge section of the website under Request Help.) One of the options for Emerge participants is participating in our financial education and budget mentoring program called TEAM (Training Equipping And Mentoring). All participants in the TEAM program are asked to complete a financial education class, attend life skills classes, and work with a mentor. Their mentor helps hold them accountable for living within their weekly budget and using the money they save from using the Love INC resources they have earned to pay off debt.

As part of the Emerge Program Agreement, all participants agree not to spend any extra money on Christmas and continue to live on their budget. Each participating family is adopted by one of our partner churches who use this opportunity to bless these families. Every year Emerge families are blown away by the generosity of the churches that adopt them. This year was no exception.

The week before this year’s Christmas party, one of the Emerge participants approached us to ask if she could spend a little bit of money for Christmas. Larena (Emerge Program Director) reminded her of the program agreement. She agreed not to spend extra but expressed concern that Christmas might not seem the same. Larena assured her that the church that had adopted them would make their family’s Christmas special. The night of the Christmas party, when I showed the family their gifts, they were almost speechless. Finally, as she fought back tears, she simply said, “Is this all for us? Wow!” As they loaded up their car that night, they asked me the name of the church that had adopted them so they could say “Thank you!”

Another participant, a single mom with a young son, was brought to tears when she saw everything the church that had adopted them was giving them for Christmas. She has been struggling to make ends meet as she goes back to school and was not expecting to have many gifts for Christmas. At the end of the night, as we filled her SUV with gifts, her son, already strapped into his car seat, kept saying, “It’s too much blessings! It’s too much blessings!”

We are thankful for the many blessings God has given even through hard times this past year. It is because of the prayer and financial support of people like you that God continues to work through the Body of Christ in the Yakima Valley to transform lives.