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This is Mathew Leary, he is holding a copy of Clubhouse Jr. Magazine surrounded by many pairs of shoes, Shoes to Share that is. He receives the magazine in the mail and like most kids is really excited about getting his own mail and getting something fun and new to read.

Early this summer he and I were up in his room reading through the most recent subscription when we came across an article about a little girl from Haiti trying to collect shoes for people in need. The magazine challenged all kids to collect shoes all summer long. Mathew and I (his Mom) decided that we wanted to help. Mathew got on the phone and called family and friends from many different states….He was excited to be helping. He went through all of our shoes and made a big pile up in the spare room…..We went to visit family in NY this summer and my sweet sister (Mathew’s Aunt “Nee Nee”) had collect bags and bags of shoes from the generous people at the school she works for. We continued to collect from family while we were in NY and mailed out 4 huge boxes before we came back home.

We arrived home and still had a pile up in our room so we filled 2 more boxes and shipped them off. I was so excited that this challenge was placed before the kids. It is SO hard for our children to understand that we have so much here in the United States. It helped Mathew and his Mom appreciate what we have and help some of God’s children.

-Felicia Leary

Teaming up with the Muscatine School District Summer Lunch Program, the Calvary Hands and Feet group provided programming to Cedar Park Apartment children for a week after the lunch meal. It was a fantastic week!

Special thanks to leadership for their support, prayers of the Gatekeepers, women who beautifully assembled and decorated pails full of summer items to be given away for drawings, a woman who made beautiful cards to personalize the pails, a women’s small group for their financial donation to purchase the items in the pails and for faithful women who assisted with the teaching and activities.

There were varying numbers of children (and parents/grandparents) each day, but we had the opportunity to minister to around 50 children throughout the week!

Here are some highlights that I can share:

• Tablets decorated and given to friends, certificates of honesty made, tinfoil art, finger-painted respect posters, cards thanking police and firefighters for courage, cards made for military personnel working for peace
• Children and families coming back day after day
• Popsicle face smiles
• Children sitting quietly listening to books about friendship, honesty, respect, courage and peace
• Being there for children and adults to talk and share their stories
• Laughter and smiles during friendship tag, respect ball tag, courageous ball rolling, peace tag
• Children crying because “they did not want to leave”
• Children eating, playing games, learning, creating, sharing, caring
• Parents/grandparents watching, helping, participating, respecting, appreciating
• Smiles, hugs and the huge joy the children showed when they were the winner of one of the two pails given out at the end of each day
• Older youth taking on leadership responsibilities
• Having great talks with parents while cleaning up together under the picnic tables
• Distrust to trust
• Being able to talk to the children about women who put the pails together because they cared about them
• While driving in to the apartments, adults and children waving and then coming over to the site
• Children’s comments on the last day, sadly “You won’t be back?,” “You should come back next summer,” “You should do an afterschool program”….
• Hopefully showing encouragement while receiving it ourselves

“Give, and you will receive. You will be given much. Pressed down, shaken together, and running over, it will spill into your lap. The way you give to others is the way God will give to you.” Luke 6:38

How grateful I am to be serving a loving and merciful God who presents us with opportunities to give to Him daily. So many times it is a matter of being where God wants you to be at that point in time to make what impact He wants you to make. What an encouragement to see Christians being there!

- Submitted by Audra Diederichs

This week-end during our special combined service, there was no childcare.

In front of me was a dear friend who is a hero of the foster care system. Her own children grown, she has a steady flow of children who find a home with her in their greatest times of need. This morning she and her teenage daughter shuffled three small little boys around into the row. A baby and his two year old brother, and another 5 year old who she has had for several months. In front of her was one of her other grown and married daughters who had with her 4 children, 2 of which they are patiently and fervently pursuing the adoption of. I know bits and pieces of the story of the two precious kiddos and it’s one full of loss and tragedy. I watched as these two families handed children from arm to arm, made bottles, gave kisses, and hugs, and handed out crayons and small toys.

By the time the service was over, the 4 adults were exhausted. And sitting there in the back surrounded by all these children, hardly two with the same skin color. All with different stories. Different wounds. I worshiped.

I was close to tears a couple times as I watched. It is exhausting work. These people. Giving their lives away. Finding Jesus in the faces of broken and hurting children. And working hard. And loving deep. And getting dirty. On a day when people were celebrating their fathers, these families had homes full of children who were temporarily or permanently without. They were filling the gaps for the fatherless.

I’m not sure that they were able to enjoy corporate worship. They probably could of used a couple minutes to be quiet and alone with their God. They didn’t get it today.

But they worshiped. Perhaps they didn’t realize it. But oh how they worship! Their lives a continual act of worship. Every day they loosen the chains of injustice just a bit for these children. It’s not glamorous. It is just plain heartbreaking and difficult and exhausting sometimes.

But of all worship services…the one I saw today touched closest to the heart of the Father.

And if they ever worshiped. These families. If ever…it’s now.

Rebuilding Together – Muscatine County – Spring 2009 Work Day from Calvary Church on Vimeo.

Submitted By: Kaleena Steinke

A while ago my mom came to me with something on her mind. I quickly discovered that it was on her heart as well. As I listened to her thoughts and ideas, I recognized this need and knew we could do this.

Together we created this organization, “Food for NICU Parents,” to provide the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital NICU with free, healthy foods and snacks for the parents of the NICU babies.

A new baby should be a time of joy, but for some parents, their worlds are turned upside down as their new bundle of joy enters through the doors of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU.) As well as their main priority and concern(the health and progress of the baby,) they are also hit, at the same time, with the worries and concerns of the financial burden.

Babies are in the NICU for days, weeks, and even months. Most parents don’t leave their baby’s side. As a former “NICU mom” I know of the never-ending love, concern and hope for progress that we had for our son. Aside from our continuous thoughts and prayers for our baby, we experienced many other overwhelming fears, such as the financial burden of not only the stay, medications, and treatments, but also the out-of-pocket expense of food.

The University of Iowa provides the NICU parents with vending machines in the NICU lounge, but there is not a good selection, and they are usually picked through. Another source for food is the cafeteria. There the parents can eat healthy, but it comes with a high price and their only other option (if living in the NICU) is to leave and bring back fast food or take out. This option is also very pricey and not a good source of nutrition (keep in mind that the parents are there for days.)

All parents need to keep themselves healthy so they can focus on the health and well being of their child/children. This is the same for parents of babies in the NICU. But how can they eat healthy in the hospital at a reasonable price? “Food for NICU parents” goal is to help reduce the parents out-of-pocket expense for food.

We are working with our local Hy-Vee Food Store to steadily stock the NICU cupboards. Together my mom and I have created a web site, http://food4nicuparents.webs.com/, to inform the public of this need and ways they can get involved.

“Food for NICU Parents” hopes to keep the NICU cupboards stocked for many months to come!

Kids Against Hunger – Food Packaging Day from Calvary Church on Vimeo.

A total of 26,500 meals were packed in 5 hours and they raised $2500 more than was needed to fund the whole event!

My first official experience with “Unleash” turned out to be quite unexpected.  The Calvary Church staff signed up to serve the Saturday noon meal with Loaves & Fishes at the Muscatine Center for Social Action.    We cooked, served the meal, washed dishes, and most importantly – we interacted with the people in need as they waited for a hot meal on a cold Saturday afternoon.

As I finished washing the last of the dirty dishes, an elderly lady came up to me and asked if we were from a church.  I said we were from Calvary Church.  She immediately reached in her pocket and pulled out $3.  She gave it to me and asked if I would give this to the church.  I assured her that was not necessary, but she insisted and commented, “God and I know what we are doing.”  I graciously thanked her and put her $3 in my pocket.

I closely guarded her $3 for the remainder of the day until I could put it in the offering plate during the Saturday evening service.

My experience that day turned out to be a blessing to me.  I saw this little lady give out of her poverty because she was grateful for the meal.  It was a blessing that I did not expect to receive.

So…give “Unleash” a try.  You never know how the blessings will be poured out.

Gale Schmidt
Calvary Church Staff

Sometimes an opportunity to help someone just falls into your lap. Our Thursday morning Mom’s Bible Study had only been meeting for two weeks when a call came in to church requesting help. A young, expectant mom was due in two weeks, and did not have the resources or family support she needed to provide for her baby. She needed stuff. And she needed our prayers.

A week later, we arrived at Bible Study carrying these:

Doing an informal and quick survey with other moms, I found out that most women have 2 to 3 showers when they are expecting, and we wanted to give something similar to this mom. We wanted it to have a real shower feel, so we brought everything wrapped. We also gathered up a car seat, a bassinet and a bouncy seat. We prayed over all of the gifts, and then sent them off.

We may never meet this mom, and we don’t even know her name. But I hope she feels our prayers, and God’s presence with her, as she becomes a new mom, and brings this little miracle into the world.

-anonymous

DJ and Kaleena from Calvary Church on Vimeo.