After my last dental appointment, my hygienist gave me a free toothbrush, toothpaste and floss. A recent stay at a hotel and they wanted us to take the little soap and shampoo in the room. A friend gave me a decorative soap that has been sitting in its original wrapper in a drawer for months. Sound familiar?
What if your kids collected all of the miscilaneous hygiene items in your home and the homes of family and friends and created hygiene kits? Many organizations who work with the poor, refugees, homeless or minister to the very poor in other countries can get fairly easy access to donated food and clothing. What is often more difficult for them to collect are hygiene items, cleaning supplies and baby supplies. Your kids can put together some hygiene kits and donate them to ministries and organizations who can share them with those who need them most.
Each kit can be items placed in a plastic bag. They can have fun using decorative ones, but make sure they are transparent to help the shelters and recipients. Each bag doesn’t have to have the exact same items. Have your kids make fliers or send emails and texts asking people to gather up all of their free samples and items they are saving for some day, but haven’t used (and probably won’t). great items are toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss, soap, lotion, shampoo, conditioner – really any personal hygiene item except razors (some shelters may have rules against them). Deodorant is not usually given away, but some friends and family may be willing to purchase and donate them too.
If you minister to people and listen to their stories for very long, you will discover there are many people whose lives were shattered by their parents’ divorce. For many, the pain is still so real you can almost touch it – even years later. The longer I live, the more I agree one of the most important gifts parents can give their children is for their own marriage to be strong.
by Sheila Wray Gregoire may just give you the help you need to change the dynamic in your marriage.
Parenting books and articles are full of lists of things to do to be a great parent. The assumption is that if you can check everything off of the list, you will have children who grow into becoming wonderful, successful adults. Christian publications are not immune either, as you can see by all of the tips in this blog over the years.
It doesn’t really matter if you are reading this post the day it went on the website or days, months or even years later. The world is filled with evil and lots of people who are more than willing to act in incredibly evil ways. Sometimes, they conduct their evil under the pretense of it being what God wanted them to do.
Proverbs is one of my favorite books in the Bible to encourage kids and teens to read independently. It is relatively easy to understand and is filled with lots of great practical advice for living a godly life. It even has 31 chapters – removing the stress of missing a day of Bible reading. Just read the chapter with the same number as the current date.
by John Mason. I was in hopes it would include a discussion of the types of prayers reading Proverbs might prompt the Christian reader to pray. Unfortunately, this was not the case.