The topic for this week’s Heart of the Matter is to share what your family does ordinarily that teaches your child an abundance of lessons.

I love the topic this week. I think that there are a lot of things we can do with our children that teaches many more lessons than they could ever get sitting behind a desk.

I thought that I would share this week one of the things we have been doing this year as a family.

I was made aware of a brand new program that was available at the beginning of this school year, and was honored to be able to bring the program to our local public elementary school.

The school has a lot of kids who are considered to be below poverty level. In fact almost 80% of the kids rely on the free lunch program. So this program addresses what happens with these kids when they are home over the weekend without a free luch available to them.

My kids and I pick up bags of groceries from the local food bank and pass them out on Friday after school to the kids who signed up for the program. As of this week we have 70 kids who regularly pick up their bags on Friday with enough food for the weekend.

This has been a wonderful experience for us all. At first we were thrilled to be able to give food to kids in need. But since the program has been going, we have learned so much about the people God loves. We have made friends with some of these families.

I love that my kids don’t treat these kids like charity, but like friends. I love that my kids are learning that God love all people. That He is the provider. That people are people. I love that at least once a week we completely take our eyes off of ourselves.

The lessons we are learning are not necessarily about academics like math (although there is a lot of counting, adding, and subtraction involved). But these are life lessons. God is teaching my kids at a young age how to treat all people and to value them even when there is nothing to gain from it.

Also, how cool is it that a group of Christians are able to go into the public school and show love. And we actually pass out the food in the front of the building, and on the wall above us is a plaque of President McKinley and the phrase “Not His Will, But Ours Be Done”