Taking P.A.C.K. to Houston!

For 10 days over this past Thanksgiving holiday our group of 15 from Pilgrim Lutheran Church in Green Bay, WI. were called by the Lord to share His love with the people of Houston, TX. Back home we have been doing monthly P.A.C.K. (Planned Acts of Christian Kindness) events out in our community for the past 18 years. This has taught us that doing of acts of kindness in the name of Jesus is both a joy and a blessing beyond anything we could have ever imagined. By loving on anyone and everyone that the Holy Spirit sends our way we place our complete trust in what God has planned. To watch it unfold before our very eyes takes faith-building to a whole new level!

One of the many blessings of doing P.A.C.K. is God's vision to take our many church activities and turn them outward into our community at large. To Care-Share-Connect as we call it. This has lead us to do a number of mission trips in and outside the USA and to the development of our emergency response team. By assembling a core of skilled volunteers, numerous others with a servant heart willing to learn, along with a trailer stocked with the basics we are ready to serve at a moments notice, or at least a few weeks notice. While at a local level P.A.C.K. would have us grabbing our rakes and chainsaws to serve the people of our own neighborhood after severe weather hit, it also challenges us to go sometimes great distances to deliver His message of love & hope to others. In either case who we will be serving is known only to God; we will serve gladly with our whole hearts giving all glory & honor to God the Father in Heaven; and we will do it willingly and freely as a reminder to all of the free gift of grace that Jesus poured out for us on the cross.

When you travel, live and work together with a team of volunteers a special bond is created. One that lasts a lifetime. Your faith is taken to a whole new level as you work together to overcome what seemingly is in an unsurmountable task that lies before you. It becomes crystal clear that while we are there to patch homes back together our real reason for being there is so the Lord can touch the hearts of those who may be wondering why He has abandoned or forsaken them at this most devastating time of their life. Everyday people experience a crisis in their lives in one form or another whether that is back here in Green Bay or in Houston or in your own hometown. P.A.C.K. provides the unusual time & place for the Lord to show up at just the right moment, a "God moment" as you soon realize, for a miracle to take place.

The "Connect Card" is an important tool of the P.A.C.K. program as it helps deliver God's message of love and grace when maybe you are at a loss for words or actual face time with the recipient is short. This also leaves them with a lasting impression of what took place in the middle of their busy & hectic day. The worship information that was provided to them in the card may go unused for weeks or months, but in God's time it will be there for them. It is our wish as the doer of P.A.C.K. for the recipient to come to a loving relationship with Jesus Christ at a church of their choosing. The information provided on the card is an encouragement for them to come to a place where they know they are welcome because of what they experienced during the P.A.C.K. event. In Houston we went down with two different P.A.C.K. connect cards which allowed us to show God's love to the people we helped and connect them to one of the two local churches that helped make it possible for us to come down and serve. One provided us with shelter and food and the other with the tools we needed and the people we could serve. Both were very gracious and hospitable! We give thanks to the Lord for the richness of life this experience has provided to us all!

Please consider doing P.A.C.K. in your community on a routine basis. The program is totally free just by signing up at: https://acts18.org/christian-kindness/. The link to the program will be immediately provided upon sign up (may need to scroll down the page) and it will also be sent to you in an e-mail (please check your spam folder just in case). God bless your service to His glorious Kingdom!