Day Fourteen: One Notebook (or Two, or Three!)

Today's act of kindness was a donation to a group called "One Life Matters." They are an organization that funds several different projects around the world to share the love of Christ.

I made a contribution through donating notebooks to Zimbabwe.

Day Thirteen: Pay it Forward...through Coffee!!

As I was running through the coffee shop drive thru (as I have been a lot this week. I guess that's an indicator of the week I've had), I decided to go ahead and pay for the person behind me. When I worked for a coffee shop, I loved seeing the reactions of people as they had their drink "paid forward." Many times, they would pay for the person behind them and the chain would keep going and going. Nothing like free coffee to make you feel all warm and fuzzy.

Day Twelve: Email to a sick child

Through another blog, I found this really cool website called Post Pals. It is a great way to encourage children who are facing life threatening illnesses. You can write an email encouragement or send a letter/package. It was very heartbreaking to go through the different profiles and see what some are going through.

I just sent a short email letting a kid know that they are super awesome/fantastic/rad!

Day Eleven: Babysitting

One of my favorite co-workers came from Nigeria, and she's got a little boy named Jader. Super super cute. For this day's act of kindness, I babysat him for a night while mum went to Bible study.

Day Six: Encouragement

Sorry for the belated post on this one. I forgot until I was going through pictures to upload that I did this one. A few days off can really throw you off!

For day six, I wanted to share a little encouragement with my sister-in-law. She is currently going to college and Wisconsin, and her classes have been a bear this semester.

Back from a day together in the summer. 

I gave her a little encouragement through a card, Santa pen, and Clif bar.

Day Ten: Angel Tree

So, I missed a few days. I felt really guilty for missing them, and wondered to myself, should I keep going? Or maybe I should just give up?

No way, Jose. I need to push through and keep going!

Today I decided to pick it back up by donating to the ministry of Angel Tree.

Angel Tree provides gifts for children who's families are incarcerated. They do a great job of blessing kids with gifts through the love of Christ!

Day Five: Flowers

When my mom was going through cancer, she had a really great friend. She helped us out so much and was such an encouragement to my mom.

Today I sent her flowers as my act of kindness.

Day Four: Scraping

It was a very, very, very snowy day today. I was late to work fifteen minutes (Gaah, I hate being late for work). It snowed and snowed and snowed.

For today's acts of kindness, I scraped off all of my coworkers cars. Not that it really matter. It snowed so much that it probably didn't make a difference, but hopefully it helped.

Day Three: Note of Encouragement and Puppy Watching

This is Teddy. Teddy is my in-laws' dog. My in-laws are teachers so Teddy sometimes spends a long day in the kennel. For today's act of kindness, I decided to watch the dog for them and take care of him so that he wouldn't be in the kennel all day.

Also left a little note of encouragement.

Day Two of Advent: Toys for Tots

At work, we have a bin set up for donations for Toys for Tots. On my lunch today, I ran over to Target and picked up this little number. It was hard to give it away! ;)

Also, started reading John Piper's Advent Book, entitled "Good News of Great Joy." It is a series of Advent devotionals and can be picked up for free here.

Day One of Advent: Letter Writing to Imprisoned Pastors

Yippee! Yippee! It's finally here! The celebration of Christ's birth is coming!

It's difficult for me to not get depressed about the holidays. People try so hard to forget the meaning of the celebration of Christ's birth.

I wanted this year's celebration to be different, so each day I am counting down by doing the "Days of Giving!" Each day I want to do an act of giving to celebrate the season.

Today is the first day. The organization called "The Voice of the Martyrs" exists to encourage the persecuted church through prayer, supplies, and letters. For my act of giving today, I decided to explore the web site and see how I could contribute.

Through this website, I was able to write a letter of encouragement to a pastor in the Middle East who has been imprisoned because of his ministry. They make it so easy to compile the letter, including important and encouraging phrases and then translating it into their language.

I hope it will bring a little bit of encouragement! I know it will affect how I pray.