For the first time, October is a month filled with happy and sad moments for our family. October 4th marked the one year anniversary of Papa Jones' passing. We miss him so much, but we were able to honor his memory through a special outreach project that our Sunday School class worked on. During the time of Mr. Jones' extended illness, Justin spent many days and lonely hours sitting in the hospital ICU waiting rooms. He was there with his mom for a good part of the summer, and then he was there the last day when he had to say goodbye. When he came back home after being at the hospital for long periods of time, he would tell me about all the families that he had seen passing through the waiting area. Some would leave happy because their loved ones were getting better and being moved to other parts of the hospital and others would leave devastated at the loss of someone they cared about. Most of the time the people he saw were there very unexpectedly, and they did not come prepared for any sort of long waiting period. But, they didn't want to leave for fear something bad would happen in their absence. From this experience he had the idea of putting together care bags for the families of the ICU patients. We shared this burden with our Sunday School class to see if this would be a ministry outreach that they would want to participate in, and we contacted one of our local hospitals to get permission to deliver the bags. It took about a year to get all the details worked out, but everything came together in the end, and last Saturday we were able to assemble our first set of 26 care bags. I am going to deliver the bags to the hospital volunteer services office next week, and we pray that the hands they reach will feel a little of God's love touching their lives. Justin was especially happy to see this project come to a completion on the anniversary of his dad's death. We love you Papa Jones!
