I loved my grandparents’ junk drawer; it had an old pair of scissors, rubber bands that usually were so old they broke, bread ties galore, plus a small hammer among other things. Every house has a junk drawer, usually in the kitchen. Ours is, but maybe yours is in the laundry room, or mud room. It’s filled with things you don’t use very often, like bag ties, screwdriver, both flat head and phillips, a hammer, nails, screws, which my husband has in baby food jars, koozies, rubber bands, an odd button, a broken part of a toy, among others things. We are very fortunate to live where we have a surplus and our needs are easily supplied. We know that others are not so fortunate and live in places where daily needs are not met and where sending your child to school, can’t be done without the supplies needed.

This is where Lutheran World Relief comes in; they work to get the needed supplies to children so they are able to go to school. We have places here that supply to children in our area the school supplies they need to go to school, which we can be very thankful for. LWR (Lutheran World Relief) supplies the need of the least of these, God’s children whose parents do not have the means to supply items for school. We can do our part by collecting items to fill the school kits needed for these children. We have 77 backpacks to fill this year and enough pens, pencils, erasers and pencil sharpeners for the bags but still need notebooks, crayons, rulers and scissors. This is not a large list of items, so as you see notebooks on sale, buy a few. When the crayons go on sale, grab a couple. When you see rulers that are only a dollar, pick some up. And blunt scissors are less than a buck, toss some into your cart. School supplies are almost everywhere this time of year, so watch for great deals and pick some supplies up for the children who otherwise could not go to school without our help. We are called to help those less fortunate than we are, so let’s show our faith by putting it into action. Let our faith be alive not dead, let it grow in good works and deeds, as James 2:18 says, “But someone will say, ‘you have faith and I have works,’ show me your faith apart from your works and I by my works will show you my faith.” Let our faith be alive shown by the works we do, filled with God’s grace and strength to do the work He has called us to do.

May your faith be shown in the good work you are called to do by helping others, within our church, in your community and within our world. Let each of us help in a small way by getting supplies for these school kits, by helping to put them together during First Fest, or by donating financially to help buy more backpacks. With everyone’s help we can fill the 77 backpacks or possibly even more. If you have any questions about ways to help, give me a call at church 608.783.2236, e-mail me at kathryn@firstlu.org, or talk to me between or after worship.