Angels In Our Midst

Have you ever thought of yourself as an angel? Angels are messengers from God who sometimes intercede for Him.

One Christmas I was such a messenger. It began one night after work when we got a list of children. We drove to where each one lived and delivered something very special.

You see it was Christmastime and these children were without their parents. Either one or more of their parents was in prison.

We had bought presents for one little girl ourselves and got to deliver them, too.  We drove to a dilapidated, dirty, old apartment complex where our brightly wrapped presents seemed out of place. We knocked at the dark brown door and an older woman opened it. She asked us to come in and inside was a girl about six years old sitting on the floor in her pajamas.

Her eyes lit up when she saw what we had for her. Her grandmother, for that was who answered the door, told us to come in. So, we chatted for a little bit about the weather and Christmas while the girl’s eyes were only on the presents. Soon we had to go, for we had run out of things to say after they had thanked us for the gifts.

I call myself an angel for doing these things not because I am a real angel, but because the program we were working for is called Angel Tree.

It’s an important program because one third of all prisoners is a parent while 75 percent of women in prison are mothers. That means more than 1.7 million children will spend Christmas separated from their mom or dad.

Right now, Angel Tree has a matching grant so that every dollar you donate is matched so that two children benefit instead of just one. This is Angel Tree’s thirtieth year helping spread joy and the gospel of Christ.

There are still lots of children who are unsponsored and the need for churches to be a part of Angel Tree is great. I was saddened to see that the county with the third most children still unassigned is Escambia County, Florida, where I grew up. You can check if other counties with unassigned children are near you at this website. The top two counties are in Texas.

I called Angel Tree to find out what is the best way to help at this late date but I wasn’t able to get through. I hope there is something I can do. It just breaks my heart to hear that 729 kids are not sponsored in the county where I grew up. Those of you from Pensacola who feel the tug of God on their hearts, send me an email and we’ll see what we can do!