Thank you so much to all the Blanket Angels who lovingly created the beautiful blankets for the angels at the Angel House foster care group home!!!
They loved the blankets and were excited to have their own personal blanket to cozy up with! It means so much to them when people show they care in tangible ways.
God worked through you to even get the right designs for the different taste preferences!!
Yes, the Fuzz got VERY busy, fringing piles of uncut fleece blankets before the next troup of
fast tying, big hearted blanket angels arrived for the day.
These two?
Record Breaking Fuzz
Add a third cutter, and they can fringe a blanket in 2 minutes flat!
Don't let the bum leg fool you,
Michelle can really cut some fleece!
Resident Fuzz, Dr. Tim.
Scissor Surgeon extrodianire!
For an hour or so, we kept tables loaded and hands busy, but before long the scissor coral grew dark, as a growing number of blanket stalkers circled the cutting station, looking to snatch up fringed fabric, sometimes before the final cuts were made.
We had some serious Blanket Angels in our midst, on task and on a mission!
Oh, they look harmless enough,
but just try and get between them and their ‘called’ covering.
It was not pretty!
(see Stacy there, to the left? Serious blanket stalker ;-)
By late afternoon, and more blanket deliveries
we realized we might need to pull an all-nighter to finish
ALL 500 blankets planned for delivery to Clarkston Saturday morning.
At this point, our sweat shop crowd had dwindled, scissors were struggling and
it looked to be a very long, possibly lonely night…
hardly!
Friday Night:
Between word of mouth among ‘the usual suspects’, sending a shout out for help to our facebook friends and Twitter peeps, God delivered another 40 Blanket Angels of every shape, size and age to joyously work the night shift!
With goal in mind & plan in place, we embarked on our marathon by stopping everything.
Yes, everything!
We gave our shears a well deserved break and
MADE every fleece wrangler take a break as well.
An hour and 45 minutes later after the scissors caught their breath,
our late night blanket angels returned in full force, ready to get ‘er done!
Armed with smiles, snacks, music and caffeine
our night work began in earnest.
In no time at all, the Magnolia room was bustling in a flurry of activity,
punctuated by praise, thanksgiving and
happy anniversary song!
(Dan and Gayle celebrated their 17 years of marriage tying hundreds of love knots all night long!)
The Fuzz were buzzing,
Fleece Ninja’s tied piles of fleece
and some of our littlest Blanket Angels
wrote personal messages of hope in every card!
PSSSSSSST!!
Don’t tell anyone, but at times, the Magnolia room was rockin as our late night angels flung some fleece while getting their praise on with Sister Mandisa – truly GLORIOUS!!
In 3 days - 1,050 fleece Blankets were similarly prepared & delivered!
Would that you all could have shared the blessing of loving loud
…well, you CAN!
After 3 days and 31 football field lengths of fleece, we still have blanket needs.
We originally planned to deliver 300 blankets in total for our on campus neighbors, with the majority designated for other per-arranged groups. By late afternoon of the first day, we shared more than 260 blankets- that's nearly as many blankets as we gave out on campus the entire 3 days last year.
The remainder of the LoveLoud weekend we invited our neighbors to join us in tying blankets for others,
shared our meals & snacks while getting to know each other better.
We collected names, addresses, & ages of those we had no blankets for
and promised personal blanket deliveries, sometime before Christmas.
we have no fleece to make these holiday blankets with.
Sooooo
this is where you come in!
We need 200 donations of $8.85.
That’s $8.85 per blanket.
With these funds, we will order the shipment of fleece needed to keep our promise.
Once we have fleece, we will message you all to join in preparing & delivering these holiday blessings!
In the meantime, rejoice with the rest of us over blessings given, received and yet to come! And remember, it is NOT about these blankets but what God is accomplishing through them!
Disclaimer: this update is loaded with a few bits of dramatization, and satirical humor. No entity (FBCW or others) has been or ever were actually operating a Sweat Shop, or sanctioned midnight dancing under the stars. These comments were poor attempts at humor from FFF leadership with a bit of fleece on the brain. The Fleece Ninja’s and Fuzz caused no harm except maybe a side ache, sore face or pulled muscle here and there due to having an excessively good time! Sound like fun to you? You really MUST Join us next time!
Thank you for your faithfulness in prayer and your faithfulness to in preparing the fleece, setting up our project stations and especially with such good and joy filled hearts.
Each one of you is such a blessing!
As a reminder:
Beginning today, please join us in the Magnolia Room (in the W building), where “Fleece Central” operate throughout all 3 days of LoveLoud.
When: Thursday October 20th and Friday October 21st from 8:30am to 8:30pm, and Saturday October 22 nd from 8:30am to 3pm
Once again, we have been so blessed with the wonderful fellowship and new friendships formed among all you volunteers. 1 Peter 1:3-4 sums it up:
"His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through them (His power, glory & goodness) He has given us His very great and precious promises, so that WE MAY PARTICIPATE in His divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires."
Please join me in prayer:
Thank you, Lord, for allowing us the PRIVILEGE OF PARTICIPATING in your divine nature; for the privilege of sharing your precious promises with those who don't know you or your promises; and for giving us the avenue of fleece blankets as an expression and demonstration of your tender thoughts toward us.
Lord, we earnestly and sincerely ask you for a harvest of souls; that blinded eyes will be opened; that stopped up ears will be unstopped; that your glory and goodness toward us will be lifted up and that all will be drawn to you.
Lord, we thank you for working out all the details - how many blankets; who receives the blankets; who prepares and who delivers (Closed in truck for ginormous delivery to Clarkston!); and again Lord, the flock of bleating sheep sounding ELECTRIC Shears (blade sharpening & replacement blade discounts!)
Lord, we thank you for the leadership of FBCW. Reward them as only you can with spiritual blessings that money cannot buy and the world cannot corrupt.
Father, we pray
1) You will bring volunteers to complete the cutting, tying and delivery of all these blankets
2) You will supply the extra funds to complete the project
3) You will keep every LoveLoud volunteer safe
4) That everything be for your honor and your glory
5) That the words of our mouth and the meditations of our heart will be pleasing in your sight, Oh Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer.
This story was messaged to us over night and too sweet not to share.
"I wanted to tell you what my 2nd grade SS class did yesterday.
Inspired by Fleece for the Flocks, I went to Hancock's and got the fleece for one blanket. My 2nd-graders tied the knots yesterday. I wish you could have heard them praying over the blanket. They truly felt in their hearts what it would be like to be given this blanket. Their prayers were so sincere as they prayed for protection of the blanket that it wouldn't be lost or stolen, that it would make the recipient happy, that they would be blessed! It was so precious. I love getting to watch the Lord work in the hearts of our precious children!"
Join us in
TWO MORE DAYS!.
Bring your children, your neighbors, family and friends.
For an hour, for a blanket, for the day. We will be fringing, tying, signing cards and praying over hundreds of fleece blankets and would love for you and yours to share in the blessing.
Don't forget, we will have many opportunities to personally deliver these loving bundles to our neighbors throughout the Atlanta area.
Can't be there personally? Please share this opportunity with your family, friends & neighbors. Message them, tweet about it, post a message to you wall! No excuses, EVERYONE can participate in some way!
Be a Blessing!!...and "Let Your Love GROW………" I Thess 3:12
For less than $10 you can wrap your neighbor in home-spun blessings of love and hope through the simple gift of a hand-knotted blanket. Message us for details in making a tax deductible donation for this year’s blanket projects including some of the following:
In the past few years I have had the delight of spending copious amounts of time teaching, playing and learning a plethora of games geared for the 5 and under crowd. I have viewed hours of commercial free 'G' rated entertainment and read countless volumes of children's literature. In the course of my emergence into 'Parenthood: 2001', I've had the occasion to be profoundly moved into action by a simple but profound truth.
"If you give a mouse a cookie..."
You see, last summer my granddaughters school sent a lengthy list of suggested reading material to share with our child before school started in the fall. Several classics were well represented: 'Harold and the Purple Crayon', 'Madeline', 'Caps for Sale' the 'Curious George' series, and 'Corduroy' was actually required...really!
One series included on the list was the "If You Give..." books by Laure JoffeNumeroff. The original story in the set is called
Then he'll want to look in the in the mirror to make sure he doesn't have a milk mustache.
When he looks in the mirror....."
I think you get the picture....quite the shaggy dog story.
I don't want to spoil the ending but ultimately the story ends up back at the beginning,
with the mouse seeing the refrigerator, which causes him to want more milk aaaand...
"chances are if he ask for a glass of milk....
he's going to want a cookie to go with it"
The story goes full circle and ultimately whoever befriends this mouse might be
exhausted AND exasperated by days end...
and this mouse...
he could become a full time job!
I can sooo relate.
How many times do I encounter a situation, a group or person in need and
turn the other way
claim no time, money or leading to help
pretend my bad ear didn't get the whole message
just decide it was not my business, my problem or better yet, not my area of giftedness?
The needs are everywhere, we run into them at every turn.
If we...
Volunteer at a local shelter, hospice, nursing home, Sunday School, a blanket ministry (you fill in the blank)
Should we donate....
Time, Talent, Money or Possessions
We might...
Get to know...really know our neighbors....maybe even those that are not so easy to know much less like.
We are not called to do the easy things, but the hard ones. Matthew 5: 43-48
If we consciously look for opportunities to share all that we have, all that HE has given us...
chances are very good MORE will be needed or expected.
Wow! This little bit of helping could turn into a whole lot of....dare I say it?
WORK!!
Work that might cut into our well deserved down time with family, friends or...TV!
"Come on" we say, "this is for someone else to do...it's their calling...their ministry....their thing"
As my insightful daughter in love Elizabeth often points out,
"Who can truly say we deserve anything?"
You know what...We Don't! Not ONE thing!
and...
Jesus said,
"I have food to eat you know nothing about."
The disciples were puzzled.
"Who could have brought him food?"
Jesus said, "The food that keeps me going is that I do the will of the One who sent me, finishing the work he started. As you look around right now, wouldn't you say that in about four months it will be time to harvest? Well, I'm telling you to open your eyes and take a good look at what's right in front of you. These Samaritan fields are ripe. It's harvest time!
"The Harvester isn't waiting. He's taking his pay, gathering in this grain that's ripe for eternal life. Now the Sower is arm in arm with the Harvester, triumphant. That's the truth of the saying, 'This one sows, that one harvests.' I sent you to harvest a field you never worked. Without lifting a finger, you have walked in on a field worked long and hard by others." John 4:32-38
All too often harvesting requires us to 'give a mouse a cookie'.
God used this powerful little parable to make me realize it's time to step up and step out.
My prayer is that we open up, earnestly seek God, ask Him to send every mouse, moose, pig or neighbor for us to love as He loves each one of us. May we be up to our eyeballs in the blessed harvest God has prepared.
How bout you?
You in on giving that mouse a cookie?
Portions of the preceding post were copied from one written about a month before the first 15 hand tied fleece blanket were made and delivered, nearly 3 years ago. Besides numbers, not too much has changed, except perhaps a greater desire to "Give a..."
For less than $10 you can wrap your neighbor in home-spun blessings of love and hope through the simple gift of a hand-knotted blanket. Message us for details in making a tax deductible donation for this year’s blanket projects including some of the following:
