By Cameron Vickrey

It was a normal Monday night in a middle class neighborhood full of busy families driving kids to and fro activities, cooking dinner and doing homework. A fellow mom, Nancy, texted 22 of our neighbors, including me, with this:

Someone from our church is a local reporter and she let me know that a bunch of migrants (including children) are currently sleeping outside the migrant facility and they could really use some blankets and water. The facility is at capacity but they are allowing them to stay outside. She believes more are on the way. If you have any blankets, coats or warm clothing for all ages and can get it to me within the next two hours, I’ll be taking some stuff out there.

My phone proceeded to blow up with responses saying, “I’ll be right over,” and “I’ve got blankets.” I filled Stephen [Reeves, executive director] in on the situation, and we agreed that Fellowship Southwest should provide some blankets and coats, so I went to Walmart and loaded up a cart full of fleecy warm things.

An hour later when I got to Nancy’s house, I was astonished at what had already been collected. The bed of her pickup truck was completely full with donations. She and her husband drove two cars full to the migrant center and passed out the goods.

Nancy reported this to the group text:

I just left, and oh my goodness how grateful they were! People were immediately putting on sweaters and jackets and everyone was asking for shoes. To see kids excited to be handed a coat by their parents or strangers who pulled it out and made it a point to pass it to them was pretty amazing.

Another neighbor replied about how meaningful this experience was to her family:

We had just been reading our Advent prayer card (see photo). We were talking about “sudden appearances” and this was a great example. A sudden appearance of children! A sudden appearance of helpers! A sudden appearance of God!

I share this, not because it’s an unusual story, but because it’s a sign that God is at work through ordinary people in the midst of their ordinary days. I do believe it’s extraordinary when people work together to collect donations, take time out of their day to stop and think of others, to have compassion, and to act on it.

Fellowship Southwest played no role in organizing this act of compassion toward migrants, but simply because I was notified by a neighbor, we were able to contribute. This is part of what donations to Fellowship Southwest allow us to do, so thank you for your generosity which ripples out in unplanned and unexpected ways.