Christmas Cards for Wounded Warriors

I will never forget what I felt the first time I walked in the halls of the San Antonio Military Medical Center last December and saw so many young men and women so horribly injured from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. My heart felt a painful twist as I realized what they had suffered in serving our country. I so wanted to run to each one of them to tell them that they were loved and so deeply appreciated. The friends who accompanied me felt the same. The feeling that blossomed in our hearts had to be expressed in some way. Christams was just a few weeks away. So it was natural for we stampers to desire to make each one of them a Christmas card. A call was quickly made to determine how many cards we would need. The number was so much larger that we expected - 1,000. However, it never occurred to us not to try. Some people told us it couldn't be done in the short amount of time we had. Even though we didn't have the money or the time to make all the cards by ourselves, with a lot of prayer, we decided to make a stab at getting it done. We sent a plea out to our community to help us pay for the materilas and assemble the cards we had designed for those very special warriors. We set aside a Saturday and asked the people to come with their families and help us assemble the cards. Based on other stamping events we thought 25 people might show up. We decided we would work from 9 AM - 2 PM and get as many of the cards done as possible, figuring that we would have to burn some midnight fuel to finish the cards not completed. We all agreed that if there wasn't enough money we would pitch in to cover the cost and for some of us that was a huge leap of faith. What an awesome card making day it turned out to be!! More than 60 people came, ranging in age from 6 months to 85 years. Each one of them wanted these young people to know they were not forgotten, that they were appreciated and that they were in the prayers of people thay had never met. Over 1,000 cards were made before noon. Truly we saw a miracle that day. And so, we are asking God for that miracle another time. This year we are going to try to make 1500 cards. We will meet at Fredericksburg United Methodist Church, 1800 North Llano, Fredericksurg, Texas on December 8th, 8:30 AM - 3:00 PM. If you are reading this we ask you to pray for our success. If you will be in the area come join us. If you are able, send us a donation -even one or two dollars will help.