Janie's Christmas Stocking

"The memory of the righteous is a blessing..." Proverbs 10:7

Greetings! Welcome to the Janie's Christmas Stocking online giving page.

My wife, Janie, was a blessing to so many in her forty-four years. Her laughter lit up the room, as did her smile. She was an amazing wife, mom, teacher and friend. As she battled cancer for six years, one of the things we both struggled with was the meaning of cancer, that is, what was God doing with Janie's cancer?  We knew we didn't want to go through it without being changed by Him, and we also knew that God doesn't do meaningless things, so if He allowed this cancer into our family's life, then, well, what did it mean?

There are lots of answers to that question (Romans 8:29 has come to mind a lot for me), but one thing we have learned is that it helps during a hardship to intentionally bless other people. It just helps the heart!

So here we are, partnering with Food For The Hungry, seeking to bless others in Janie's memory.

Janie's Christmas Stocking

In November of 2010, having just lost Janie back in May, we were anticipating our first holiday season without her. As we all know, this can be very tough. As we put out the perennially-familiar Christmas decorations, we came across her stocking. The stocking is of course an individualized item in the Christmas decoration lineup, and we hesitated: "what do we do with it? Hang it up? Store it away?" We finally opted for the latter, but didn't feel too good about it. Janie's parents swung by and noticed our home's lack-of-stocking, and had a brilliant idea: why not "re-task" it to collect money to give away? So we did! And the "Janie's Christmas Stocking" fund-raiser was born. You can read more about that here, here, here, here and here.

Well, well, well

This year, we decided to be pretty ambitious, since so many people last year - even folks we have never even heard of or met but who had heard about the project - contributed and we raised more than three times our goal! So rather than blessing only one family with one cow like last year, we are looking to supply an entire village somewhere in the world with a village well. As you probably know, dirty water for drinking and bathing is a leading source of the spread of disease, and many people living in areas with no well must travel long distances for clean water. This is sometimes so difficult that they simply don't do it and they and their children get sick and even die from disease due to dirty water. So a well right in their village would change all that. Plus, Food For The Hungry will give this well in the name of Jesus, who gives living water, Himself, to the spiritually thirsty.

To donate now, just click the big green "Give Now" button at the top right of this page. The site will automatically connect your gift with Janie's Stocking. The Project will end at midnight on December 31, 2011. If you happen to live near me, you can also hand me a check (made out to "Food For The Hungry") or even cash! I'm snail-mailing the final packet to FH on December 30th.

THANKS SO MUCH for your donations, and let's all prepare ourselves to be WOWED by how God is going to bless others in Janie's memory and in Jesus's name!