As Gail Anderson watches her busy grandson Dustin scurry around the living room in her rented home in southeast Huntsville, her mind drifts to the upcoming season. This year, like most others, would be lean.
Dustin and his mother Melissa have lived with Gail for most of Dustin’s 6 years. Gail collects a small disability stipend from the government and Melissa works two full-time jobs. Neither pays much and she is often gone 85 hours a week.
“She does it so that this year she can put some presents under the tree for Dustin,” Gail said.
Dustin’s father isn’t involved at this point, so providing a nice Christmas for him will fall squarely on Gail and Melissa.
Families such as the Andersons are the reason Pastor Charles Freeman of Hillwood Baptist Church in Huntsville began “Sharing the Light” — a Christmas outreach program that provides to struggling community members a traditional Christmas dinner, a new, wrapped toy for each child, a week’s supply of groceries and a Bible. The Andersons, along with 400 others, attended this year’s “Sharing the Light” festival Dec. 11.
“Many of the people we help are hard workers like the Andersons,” explained Margaret Nivens, the logistics coordinator for “Sharing the Light.” “They are single moms or dads; some have been affected by catastrophic illnesses, while others are grandparents who find themselves raising their grandchildren.”
In 1995, Freeman saw a television program highlighting Second Baptist Church of Houston’s “Angels of Light” outreach program. He was struck by what a difference a single night made in the lives of so many and the fire the ministry ignited among the church members. He decided a similar Christmas outreach was just what his church had been looking for.
He said, “I thought, if God is in something that much we need to be part of it.”
They started off with 10 families, which Nivens said made her “very nervous.
“We were relying solely on love offerings and church volunteers to put it together,” she said. “Right away we realized that we would have to rely totally on God to make this thing work.”
Freeman said the first year was a great success. “We picked up all 75 people with our church busses and made the dinner ourselves. It was so exciting to be able to give these folks a nice Christmas.”
Over the last eight years Freeman has watched “Sharing the Light” grow into the church’s largest ministry. The number of people invited to the banquet has quadrupled and they have since moved the festivities from their fellowship hall to the gymnasium.
Nivens, who has coordinated the event since the beginning, began breaking church volunteers into different teams the second year of the ministry.
“We have a grocery team that does all the food shopping and box packing, we have a food prep team, a traffic team, servers, dippers (they scoop the food onto the plates) and the toy team,” said Nivens.
“We even have a team stationed at Wal-Mart with cell phones the night of the event just in case we need a toy or a missing grocery item,” she added.
“Meeting [families’] physical needs is important to us, but we also want to provide some spiritual nourishment,” said Freeman. “That’s what our drama team is for.”
Before everyone settles down to eat, the drama team performs a gospel-centered play. Last year 70 people made professions of faith after the performance.
More than one-third of the 300-member church is involved in the program at one point during the year and other churches such as Korean Baptist in Huntsville provide child care during the event. Girls in Action members and Acteens make the Christmas decorations, and a Boy Scout troop that meets at the church carries in and packs the groceries.
“What psyches me most as a pastor is watching how the congregation comes together to make everything work,” Freeman said. “By the end of the night they almost have an afterglow.”
Share with others: