December 10, 2015:

Today, I started writing a couple of letters. I am writing a letter of encouragement to a brother from Central African Republic who lost his left leg in an explosion near his church where he was worshipping. His spirit is strong and glorifying to God. And he is persevering through this trial. His words in response to his losing his leg and having the other damaged was so encouraging for me. He said, “God created me. I know He will continue to provide for me and my family and give us courage through these hard times.” There are so many stories like this. And they’re not stories. They’re human lives. I just want to offer encouragement where I can. There’s another story that touched me. There is couple of memes on facebook circulating this girl’s request for Christmas cards. She was severely burned and lost her family in the fire. When I heard about it and that all she wanted for Christmas was to have a lot of cards, I wanted to send her one too. She’ll probably get so many but I’d be happy to add mine to her gifts. The last one is for my sponsor child. She is from Ethiopia. I want to form a friendship with her, so that she knows someone who doesn’t know her personally cares for her. I always wanted to do the same thing when I was sponsoring a child with Save the Children. But I wasn’t in a place emotionally healthy enough to be a help to anyone at that point. But I did what I could. I contributed financially. I am getting a VHS copy of the movie about my life turned into DVD right now. A school I spoke at in the past wants to show it again for bullying awareness. It’s a good idea. I’m going to send them the DVD. Tomorrow is the Gatehouse’s Christmas party. Looking forward to this. I may see some faces I haven’t seen in a while. Today, I am grateful for the fact that even though I woke up tired and sore that I woke up.