Volunteering Behind the Scenes

My former church (and former employer) Second Baptist Church is gearing up for their annual Christmas missions event: Angels of Light. It's an amazing week-long event where the church hosts Angels from Houston. (The Angels are people in need who are currently being served by various missions and agencies that partner with the church.)

Each night the angels are picked up at their mission or agency and brought to the church where they eat dinner (donated by local Chick-fil-A restaurants), see a show/sermon and are given a Bible, bag of groceries, goodwill clothing voucher and age-appropriate toy on the bus as they are driven back. There are many amazing stories of the hope and joy that this event brings these Angels!

As you might imagine this is a very detail-heavy event! From wristbands to name tags, gift sorting to directions... there are a TON of tiny (but important!) details to consider. Thankfully the Ministry Network Staff (and the volunteer board) are up for the challenge!

Since I remember all of the work that went on the weeks prior to Angels of Light, I asked my pal Amy if I could come up and help out for a few days. I think my e-mail was returned in less than a minute with a huge YES!

Here's Amy conferring with Lindsey about childcare (for those that volunteer the week of the event):

Great photo, yes? It wasn't even posed! Really! This one, however, was:

That's me, pretending to sort through lanyard nametags. In reality, I didn't sort through any nametags. I mostly labeled wristbands. Lots and lots of wristbands...

Each band is color coordinated with the church campus and the night they are attending (as well as the number of bus the Angels will be taking).

Here's Amy, hard at work (with bus captain boxes in the foreground):

And then there's the Bibles... this is just a small section of them!

Here's ANOTHER small section:

I mean... that's a LOT of Bibles!

I truly enjoy being able to take a tiny bit of time out to help get all of the behind the scenes details ready. And I'm SO very proud of my pals in Ministry Network, their volunteer chairmen/board and the entire Second Baptist Church family. They accomplish SO much for so many Angels in our hometown. And they do it with humility, grace and love.