I love Christmas. As much as I have always struggled with money, I have always loved spending money on people. Whether that is giving money to different charities or buying gifts for my family, I have always loved giving this time of year. And so, I thought I would give an update on Operation Jesus Money and let you know some ways you can give to help others this Christmas.
Our current giving to what I have listed in our budget as “Trusting Jesus” is at $115. For those that don’t know what I am talking about, you can find more information here and here. It’s great to have money above and beyond our tithe that we truly trust Jesus to provide and open up opportunities to give. But we also wanted to be wise in how we give. We have started using around 50% of the money to fund different organizations. Currently these organizations are:
Compassion Connect – They are doing just about everything. They have free medical/dental clinics, help plug people into anti-trafficking work, a design studio to help prevent trafficking, and apartment living missionaries. They are an awesome organization.
Micah Challenge USA – A global Christian campaign to end world poverty. Another great organization with a high but obtainable goal.
Olivia Baurer – A missionary from our church and a friend of ours. She is currently serving at YWAM in Tyler, Texas.
The rest of the monthly money goes to whatever comes up in that month. It could be just helping out friends, paying part of our neighbor’s rent, sending teens on missions trips, or a need in the church. But this time year, we have few organizations that we love.
Child’s Play – Started by two nerds who also write a comic, this organization is one of my favorites! I’ve been donating to it each year since it started. What I love to do, rather than giving money to the organization, is to browser the local hospital’s Amazon gift list. That’s right, different hospitals have a wish list setup that you can browse through and purchase gifts that go straight to the hospital. It is so much fun and you are helping kids in hospitals.
Angel Tree – Our church is apart of this and this is our second year being involved in this. For us, our church has a list of names of kids who have one or both parents incarcerated. It will have the child’s name, age, and gift suggestions. You purchase one of the items listed, wrap it, and drop it off. It gets delivered to kids with a note from the parent. Basically you are buying a present on behalf of the parent to give to their kids. It’s awesome.
Toy Drives – We have a toy drive at our local WalMart each year. This is my second year donating to it. This year me and Lindy picked out something. It was so much fun. I’m really into being able to pick out a gift rather than just donating money.
Well that’s all I have for now. I’m going to take the rest of the month unless something hits me and have to post about it.