Kids Quest Online

I remember when I went on a mission trip when I was 15. It was to Venezuela for two months. I had to raise about $2500 and I worked really hard to raise that money. I did odd jobs, saved Christmas and birthday money and even sent out support letters to family and friends. It was an incredible experience. When I got to Venezuela, I met many other teenagers who got their by a different method. Their mom or dad wrote a check. This isn’t really a bad thing. Those kids had an incredible experience in Venezuela just like I did. However, I learned and experienced some things that they never did. I had a team of 40-50 supporters who experienced this trip through me that summer. I experienced the fruit of a lot of hard work on my part. Last of all, I saw God provide for me in a BIG way.

As I posted earlier, we’re doing a little mission project to restock the food pantry. We’re letting Kids Quest own this project. Although we want to raise as much food as possible, we also want this to be a project of significance for our kids as well. Each and every one of our kids could run home on Sunday and grab four or five non-perishable items and we’d have tons of food (literally). But what good is that? Sure, we’d restock the pantry, but would it make a lasting impact on your kids? Would it make a lasting impact on your family? Not likely.

So, here are a few suggestions that will help your kids “own” this project:

Work for food:
Sit down as a family and talk about how much food/non-perishables you’d like to raise. Set a goal. Then assign a value to these items. Maybe cleaning up their room will be worth a can of food. Or washing the car for another can. Let the kids earn it. Have fun, maybe even parents can set goals of things they can do too. Maybe finishing that little side project is worth a can of food as well. Let kids help celebrate completion of tasks and movement toward goals.

Go without food:
This one isn’t’ easy, but can be a powerful teaching tool. There are many in our community who don’t have as much as we do. Maybe for one meal, everyone will do without one item. Maybe it’s one of the extra side items. Perhaps it’s the french fries in that happy meal. Talk about it what it’s like to not have as much as your are used to and thank God for the opportunity to have “plenty” and the willingness to share. Make a special trip to the grocery store with the whole family to pick out the food to donate. Involve everyone in this process.

Get others involved:
Let us not keep this to ourselves. Sit down and talk about who you might ask for help. Maybe a neighbor or good friends. Determine how much you want to bring in as a family and then set a goal of how much more you can raise by asking others.

Well, those are a few ideas to get you started. As the month goes on, we’ll provide updates as well as other ideas. Hey, this is a blog. If you have some creative ideas you plan to do, post them here as a comment and share with everyone!