Balloons, balloons, balloons!!!!

Our church challenged us this week by giving each of us an envelope with some money in it & we were supposed to find some way to serve those in our community.  I finally settled on visiting a nursing home…it is so out of my comfort zone to visit nursing homes.  When Tyler’s grandmother was in a nursing home, I passed out when we went to visit her.  I think I terrified her & Grandpa Malone!  I just don’t do well with the smells/sounds/etc.  But, when I was thinking about ways to serve, I kept coming back to the nursing home…so I decided this must be what God wants me to do!

This afternoon, my family decided to go and buy balloons for the residents of Lincoln Manor nursing home.  Tyler called over there to let them know they were coming & we found out that they were having a birthday party today, so the timing was perfect!  We ordered 30 mylar balloons (with smiley faces & various colors of stars) and stuffed them into the Corolla.  Poor Millie was feeling a bit claustrophobic surrounded by the balloons! haha!  We walked into the nursing home and Mason & Millie walked around and passed out the balloons.  They were so sweet & told each person “Have a great day!”  We quickly realized that 30 balloons wouldn’t be enough and we headed back to the store and ordered 25 more.  We went back (again, Millie wasn’t loving being stuffed in a car with so many balloons!)  and finished handing out balloons to those that were at the birthday party.  They were all so excited to receive a balloon!  We walked around and visited the rooms of those that didn’t attend the party and finished passing out the balloons.  It was sweet to spend a little time with Mrs. Helen Cockrum as well!  I was cracking up as we were leaving to look back and see everyone heading down the hallway with their balloons tied to their walkers & wheelchairs.  I think it brightened my day even more than it did theirs!  My children truly enjoyed spending the time with everyone as well.  This is definitely something I’d love to do again & has really challenged me to try to come up with creative ways to serve those in our community!  I’m so very grateful for this opportunity!

You can view more of how those in our church have served others this week at our new church blog: www.decaturcommunityofone.com