Remembering His Faithfulness

Last year brought growth in our ministry with the birth of Good Dads Kansas City. Neighbors Who Care and Good Dads KC are partner organizations that work in tandem to help hurting families in the Kansas City area. Neighbors Who Care helps with needs that are often symptoms of deeper needs (i.e. physical needs like food, clothing, and furniture); whereas, Good Dads KC works to get at the root of what is causing these needs (i.e. relationships with God and family, specifically focused on helping men be the dads and leaders that God calls them to be). We have seen God work through our Good Dads KC trainings as men’s hearts and lives are transformed and, in response, their families’ lives as well. We will share more specifics about these exciting changes next month, but for now, we want to reflect on how God has used Neighbors Who Care.

Christmas is a difficult time of year for families who have trouble affording even basic expenses, let alone Christmas gifts for multiple children. Any parent can understand the desire to give their children everything, imagining their excitement as they open gifts. Now picture not having money to go Christmas shopping, which leads to envisioning the disappointment and sadness you fear your children will feel on Christmas day.

This year, it started with one single mom who has been helped by our team for a couple of years now and is a regular attender at New Life CityChurch. Leilah is a single mom of an 8-year-old boy with special needs, a 9-year-old girl, and a baby girl on the way. She is a survivor of domestic violence and is in the process of moving to a safer neighborhood. On top of everything, her mother, Shayla, is battling stage 4 lung cancer and has three adopted teenagers of her own, so Leilah has been taking on additional responsibility to support them. Needless to say, when Leilah and Shayla asked for assistance with Christmas gifts, we felt compelled to help and trusted that God would show up like he always does, just at the right time.

Three days later, out of the blue, one of our church members let us know that she and her volleyball team were interested in adopting a family for Christmas! We got in touch with a couple of donor groups from last year, and one replied right away saying that they wanted to help again. Already both families were covered!

Meanwhile, Kate and Brandon, who we recently started working with, let us know their vehicle had a flat tire and flat spare. After just one phone call to a local auto shop owned by a generous couple, the tire repair was covered. They even asked if the family had any Christmas needs, so we passed along some items that Kate and Brandon recently shared. Again, God showed up in places we had not expected or even asked for.