The Spirit of Giving

The Toyota plant where Bill works sponsors a contest each year for kids of employees to color pictures which are then put into a yearly calendar for employees. If you win one of the 12 months, you also win a 50 dollar VISA gift card. If you send in an entry you get a 15 dollar VISA card -- just for entering.

This is how we have come to be in possession of 60 dollars worth of VISA debit cards - 4 non-winning entries. The letter that accompanied the card said there were over 1100 entries, making VISA happy, I'm sure. Toyota - not so sure about them. Still, they do it every year, so I guess they are happy too.

The many weeks leading up to the arrival were filled with excited anticipation as every time a toy ad came through the door, the kids would go through it feverishly marking what they wanted to buy. Every trip to Target or Wal-Mart had to include a detour down the toy aisle to plot and plan what coveted item their pending 15 dollars would buy for themselves.

Every day they would clamor to go to the mailbox as soon as the flag was down to see if their cards had arrived. Every day was the same barrage of questions if I happened to be the one getting the mail, "Is my card here? Is there any mail for me? Did they come yet? How long does it take for gosh sakes!!!"


Until -- finally -- they came. Last week I got the mail and as I was pulling into the garage I finally gave the answer they had been waiting for, "Do you mean these?" and with a grand flourish I held the envelopes up in the air. One, addressed to each of them. The whoops that followed woke Sophie -- which still makes me happy - that she is woken by sound.

We went inside and they tore open their mail. Carly was the first to speak, "Save your letter because we need to send a thank you to Toyota." That alone made me dread the shopping trip less. Jacob asked how you would tithe off of a gift card. That question did my heart good too. The rest of the day was just spent planning their new found wealth after I assured them that we would go shopping THE NEXT DAY if everyone did their school work quickly in the morning.

As you can imagine, school started at the crack of dawn the next day. When I was done reading The Story of the World to them I told them I wanted to talk about what they were going to buy. I certainly had their interest then.

I only said a few things. I told them that they knew they were getting Christmas gifts because they had put the presents under the tree. They already had a lot of toys and some of those weren't even played with. And I asked them if they knew anyone who might not be getting any gifts. Then I asked them to go spend some time and think about what they wanted to buy - something else for themselves or possibly something for someone who might not be getting a gift.

They left the table in a thoughtful mood. Carly was the first one back and she handed over the coveted card with the declaration that she wanted to give it to help somebody else. Wes was next and he was quite content to spend his money--- on himself. (I bet you thought this was all warm and fuzzy, but no) Jacob came along, echoing Carly's decision and last was Ryan.

Ryan started telling me his decision by saying, "You know all those toys that we don't play with - well, we could clean those out and give them to the kids that don't have any." I agreed that yes we could do that. Then he continued, "THEN they can have my money to buy some new ones too." Ahhh, 3 out of 4 generous spirits.

Jacob even had a suggestion of who to buy for and it was the exact family I had in mind. Both of the parents are new Christians, originally brought to church by their children -- who were brought by their friends. They were now struggling to change their entire way of life, to straighten up and be the parents they should have been for the last decade.

I talked to the mom at church, got her permission to buy for the kids, found out what they liked and we ended up going to Target to spend those cards after all. Wesley even had a change of heart by the time we got there, so each child ended up with 3 toys to unwrap.

The toys were just taken to the parents, so they could wrap them and present them from themselves. And the kids couldn't have been happier except there were 6 happy kids and not just 4. They had a great time spending their money. Giving -- it does a heart good.