Winter is here!  My pumpkin patch is ready to harvest and my daughter picked the tomatoes that were ripe . . . and the rest will hopefully stay nice on the vine until Wednesday–our church host a shelter every Wednesday–and fresh, home grown tomatoes on the salads would be great!

I do love winter–I love snuggling up, hot drinks, soups and stews with big hunks of bread (that my 6-year-old makes in the bread machine–I love teaching life skills).  I like the crisp air.  I feel fortunate that I have coats, boots and a warm house.

My heart is heavy knowing that I have what I need (and more) and others do not.  I would love to just help everyone I meet and have them all just move in . . . but my husband reminds me that I need to be realistic and he and I talk about how we can help those who need it–that does not involve turning our home into a shelter.

So this year I am working with our church with PADS–Public Action to Deliver Shelter our church provides meals and shelter for homeless and needy–kids, women and men.  I am the co-chair coordinator for the Moms ministry–we provide meals for 50 people once a month.

It all started last year when my friend Kim and I gave a talk to the Moms group about saving money (I wrote a series about it).  From that talk I was asked to work on the PADS ministry to help create meals that were tasty and economical.  I want to serve food that is healthy, nutritious, and what I would make for my own family.   Baboombah–as my 9-year-old says–I melded my love of cooking, saving money and helping out those in need.

It all just sort of happened.  My heart sings knowing that I am helping.   My heart sings to know that each salad will have a tomato from my garden.  Will the folks know that it isn’t from the grocery store, probably not, but it IS about serving them with the same dignity and respect that I serve my own family.

If you have a ministry like PADS that you help out with and want to share your ideas, I’d love to know what others are doing and how you came about deciding on that as your ministry.

Happy Winter.  (as usual with my posts–I was going in one direction but felt the need to talk about PADS instead–does that ever happen to you?  really–I could just start writing and delete the first 3 paragraphs)