Are you or anyone in your family handy with a needle or a sewing machine? Enlist grandparents to sew blankets for children in orphanages. With soft material such as fleece, a blanket can mean the difference between going cold or staying warm for a child. A friend of ours who regularly participates in this project uses flat sheets, stuffs them, and sews them together for added thickness.
This simple item, one that most of us take for granted, can truly make a difference. Check with your church for the name of an organization that can distribute these blankets to children abroad. There are also children’s homes throughout the United States that could use the gift of a blanket. Another idea is to donate blankets to a hospital for the children’s ward. The children can then take these blankets with them when they leave.
My oldest daughter, who has a heart for those less fortunate, told me the other day, “Mom, poor people are like flowers. If they’re not cared for, they wilt and die.” I thought about the truth of her words. If we don’t water the flowers and make sure they’re planted in good soil, they won’t live. The same is true for those less fortunate, such as those in orphanages. If we don’t care about them and provide things they need, even things as simple as blankets, they, too, will wilt and die.
Up for Discussion
How can those who deliver the blankets to the children in the orphanages use the blankets to explain God’s love?
Brightly colored fabrics used for the above project can bring additional hope for those who receive them. Explain why this is true. If you have a talent of sewing, how else could you use this talent for God?
A warm blanket can mean the difference between life and death. How does God’s love help us to survive even when times in our lives are difficult?
Read Deut. 10:18. Discuss how even though a child may not have parents, a widow may have lost her spouse, and the alien may be in a strange land, God loves him or her even if there’s no one else on whom he or she can rely. Next time you’re in the midst of a crowd of people, remember that God loves everyone and yearns for everyone to know Him.
He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing.
—Deut. 10:18