New Years

It's that time of the year when Make the Change Mission gets to look back at 2012 and see if I and we have kept on track with the goal of this Blog page and that is “finding ways to change people’s life’s in your actions, your words, your deeds and your faith." I truly believe that each one of us has the ability to change our homes, our families, our neighborhoods, our communities and our states. We don't have to be scholars, college graduates, all "A" students, politicians, community leaders or fairy tale hero's. If you are any of those, all the better!!! However, all we have to be is ourselves!!! The more that I find myself meeting people, the more I realize how important each of us are. We all have a unique opportunity to impact the people, the community, the neighborhoods, the families, the homes we live in. I am more and more convinced, that if each of us takes the time to put into practice the "motto" of this page and Make the Change, we will see more and more people, finding hope, joy, happiness and peace, in these troubled times. Each person you meet has a need, each need has a purpose and each purpose can create for us a path, a path that leads us down one road or another. We all want to believe that we don't need anyone else, we are raised from children to become "adults" and what does that mean? It means that we are able to go out on our own, make our own decisions and no longer "need" our parents or anyone else. This concept has lead us as adults to believe that if we need someone, than we are failing in what we have been taught our whole lives. This could not be farther from the truth. Yes, being an adult often means that we venture out on our own, we find our own way and we find our own lives, but never should it mean that we no longer "need" our family, our friends, even sometimes strangers that we have yet to meet. As human beings, we are relational beings and with that nature, comes the need to "need" others. So many people that I meet and talk with truly need someone to invest time in their life and invest in a relationship with them. I am amazed at how many people even though they have "a lot" of friends, feel so alone. Many of the most outgoing people, often find themselves sitting on the couch at night praying that they had someone that understood them, someone that they could tell everything to, but feeling like there is no one there for them. This past year has found me in so many places that I never would have been five years ago. With each new person I find, with each new project I take on, with each new opportunity I seek out, I find a person, a group, a community, waiting for me. It is so exciting to go out each day looking for the opportunity to serve and never being disappointed. This past year has found me helping to feed over 840 people that were hungry, it found me helping fund my son’s mission trip to Joplin MO. and watching him impact several families devastated by natural disasters and also seeing him and our youth leader grow a bond that has changed him in so many ways, all of them good. I have found myself at many houses helping to fix computers, build dream houses and many other odds and ends, not because I am strong, able bodied or even capable of building a house, because I am not, I am disabled, but I found ways in all those cases to help in whatever way I was able and I found in all those cases, people open to a crippled guy who could give them an hour or two of help and it made a difference, it helped, it created a friendship, a bond, a trust, that I was there for them and I found later, that those same people were there for me when I needed them!!! I found myself answering the call of an old client of mine that turned into me saving her life, because after meeting with her and talking with her I found that she was going to kill herself, but because of our "chance" meeting, because I was open to the principles of this page, she and my family connected and she didn't kill herself and she made it through another Christmas. I found myself working with my girls knitting hats for the homeless and hurting in Flint, 74 hats we made and my daughter and I were able to pass those hats out to over 60 people, knowing that they would at least have warm heads this winter. I found myself following a man home that had run out of gas and helping him out and seeing this big huge man holding his little girls hand, crying, hugging me, telling me how that help was an answer to his prayers. I found myself at our church, giving people a Christmas, who without our church would not have had Christmas, they received gifts that blew their minds. Hearing them tell me how blown away they were that they were getting the kind of gifts they were and how thankful they were. I found myself out in Flushing on Taste of the Trail, again with our church, handing out trail mix and meeting a group of guys that have impacted my life tremendously. They are the Greater Flint Muddler Minnows. I met them out on the trail and something told me to join their group, something that I have never done, EVER!!! I gave them my last $25 for membership fees and am now a member of their board, have become good friends with the president of the club and have been so blessed by him and the opportunities that I have had because of them. There were so many, many more experiences that I had that made 2012 an amazing year, not because I fulfilled my New Year’s resolutions, not because I was able to lose those 30 pounds that I was hoping for, not because my health improved, but because in 2012 I was able to find ways to change people’s life’s in my actions, my words, my deeds and my faith. My hope this year, is that all of us will strive to make that commitment, to use each day as an opportunity to Make the Change and therefore make a difference that will last beyond our resolutions!!! Happy New Year Everyone!!!