I’m a lucky fellow because I love my job. Sure, it has its frustrating moments- but on the whole I get to do the things I love with people I love in a place that I love. It doesn’t get any better than that.

And this Advent season, I feel that love ten-fold.

As the resource minister for our Outreach committees, I get to sit in the very fortunate seat of watching the good will and grace that we share with our community get distributed during this season of giving.

Let’s face it; as a church, we love to give. We take delight in sharing our resources with others. Whether it’s mixing up a batch of your grandma’s secret recipe chili for the youth groups, or stuffing sweet treats and disposable razors into tube socks for our friends in need, you, UCG, are exemplary in your willingness to share.

So on this day before the day before Christmas, I want to share with you some of the gifts that have been given on behalf of you.

Those Christmas gifts you purchased for the families at Rawlings Elementary? Proud parents and grandparents took great advantage of our Christmas gift market, and in turn provided almost $800 for an emergency fund now overseen by the staff at Rawlings.

Those socks you stuffed with hygiene products and treats? Almost 300 of them were gobbled up at Grace Marketplace by grateful hearts, happy to get an early gift this season.

We offered financial assistance to some incredible organizations this year. They were the Florida Organic Growers, Friends of Grace Marketplace, the S.W.A.G. community center, the Survivors of Suicide Memorial Garden, Helping Hands Clinic, and the Interfaith Habitat for Humanity project. This year we also supported Kindred Spirits- an organization that offers financial assistance to death row inmates who have no other source of support. We helped purchase gifts for the clients at Meridian Behavioral Health Center, and sponsored a Christmas party for a group home at Tacachale. And we have supported the Welcoming Cities initiative, in hopes of making Gainesville a city that will settle refugees in the near future.

We also passed out hundreds of dollars in mini-grants to your friends and families who need a little extra assistance this year. We did it all in the name of love, all through the mission of the United Church of Gainesville.

As our eyes turn to Christmas, the day when we celebrate the birth of the Christ child, come to usher in the time of love, hope, joy and peace for all people, may we do so knowing that through your gifts and grace, many people will experience those promises this year, and in the year ahead.

It is a Merry Christmas indeed.