In December, Blue Ridge partners with Prison Fellowship Angel Tree to give Christmas gifts to nearly 200 children. This ministry helps keep prisoners connected with their children by delivering a gift in their name — with the love of Jesus.
Kym Andrews and her family participated in this ministry and she shared their story of delivering the gifts.
Today we delivered our Angel Tree gift to the little girl whose name we pulled from the tree.
The grandmother had avoided talking to me for days and would not return my messages. However, we needed to drop it off, so we took a leap of faith and drove there after third service.
Lucie's class in Kids Community made a little toilet-paper-roll baby Jesus in a manger. [Lucie is Kym’s daughter.] It was made out of cardboard and covered in yellow felt to look like hay. She came to me after church and said, "This is for Amy! I want her to have it so she can hold onto Jesus on Christmas." I smiled and we went to our car.*
When we arrived, the grandmother, Amy's guardian came to the door, opening it only slightly. She was in her robe. She was clearly keeping us out of her apartment and her life, protected by the door.
I introduced myself and our family and explained that we wanted to bring Amy a special Angel Tree Christmas present from her dad. The grandmother took the gift, muttered “thank you,” but never smiled. There was no sign of the sweet little girl we had come to see.
As she began to close the door on us, Lucie stepped up. If you knew my little "LuLu" at all you would be very aware that she is shy. But Jesus did something amazing. Lucie said, "Hi ma’am, my name is Lucie. I got to make this in church today. It's baby Jesus. I wanted Amy to know it is His birthday on Thursday. I thought she might want to hold him in her arms so she won't forget."
As she started to hand this symbol of love made out of a toilet paper roll to the guarded and somewhat suspicious grandmother, I watched something completely of Jesus take place. The door opened wide and the grandmother stepped right up to Lucie and leaned down to her face. A smile crept out of that hardness. Her eyes lit up! She reached to take the treasure Lucie had offered, and she placed her hand on Lucie's cheek saying, "Lucie, thank you so much sweet child! This is beautiful! She will love it!"
Lucie responded, "Merry Christmas, and Thank you!" As we walked back to the car I couldn't help smiling. The enemy tried very hard to shut us out today and make it just one more present from one more organization. But the greatest gift wasn't fancy or expensive, it was simply the love of a child who is not yet afraid to say His name to others...Jesus!
*The Angel Tree child’s name has been changed to protect her privacy.