Serving Others: Two of Our Favorite Help for Heroes Encouragers
On August 9, GFC launched the Help for Heroes initiative to provide support in various ways to our local healthcare heroes and GFCers eagerly went to work in three ways!
1. Breakroom Baskets
Our church provided 143 baskets filled with snacks and other goodies for the breakrooms at the Johnson City Medical Center, Niswonger Children’s Hospital, Franklin Woods Community Hospital, Woodridge Hospital, and the VA Hospital, as well as other healthcare workplaces, like fire and EMS stations, emergency dispatch offices, and more.
2. Shift Change Prayer
GFCers also signed up to cover our local healthcare workers in prayer every day at 7am and 7pm (typical shift change times) for six weeks. A weekly guide was sent to these prayer warriors so that we could collectively pray for the health and safety of healthcare workers and their families, their emotional and spiritual health, perseverance, adequate rest, quality time with their families, and for God to allow them to see glimpses of His work during this stressful season.
3. Encourage-a-Hero
Those signing up to Encourage-a-Hero were assigned a local healthcare worker in which to encourage for six weeks via email or handwritten notes and gifts, with delivery coordinated through the GFC office to keep as many GFCers safe in their homes as possible.
The sign-up forms from GFCers began pouring in that Sunday! Hundreds of people stood in the gap to provide encouragement and intercessory prayer for our local healthcare heroes, including two of our smallest GFCers, Sola and Kyla Mann. Sola, age 7, and Kyla, age 5, are the daughters of Worship Pastor Stephen Mann and his wife Correne. These girls love to serve and are always willing to help where they can – you may remember seeing them passing out bulletins at onsite services last fall and winter. Definitely the cutest bulletin hosts we have on the roster!
Here’s a little insight into their experience as encouragers during the Help for Hereos initiative.
What does it mean to be a Help for Heroes encourager?
Sola – “It means that I pray for her and give her notes to help her feel happy and proud!”
Kyla – “I pray for her! And I make cards for her! Lots of cards… not just one!”
Why are we helping and encouraging our healthcare heroes?
Sola – “Because of the coronavirus… they are taking care of all the sick people.”
Kyla – “Because people have the coronavirus and those people are going to the hospital.. and why they are going to the hospital is because they are sick.”
Why did you want to be an encourager?
Sola – “I just really wanted to help someone. I really like helping!”
Kyla – “Because I like praying for my own nurse and making cards for my own nurse.”
What kind of things did you do to encourage your hero?
Sola – “I pray for her to get enough rest, have perseverance, strength, wisdom, compassion, love, and energy! I make notes for her, too. I want her to feel happy and better about all the bad things.”
Kyla – “Made her cards! And I pray for God to give her energy, strength, perseverance, patience, wisdom, compassion, and love, and that she will choose happy thoughts and go to bed at a decent time and wake up and feel refreshed for another day of going to the hospital.”
What was your favorite part of thing about being an encourager?
Sola – “I really like praying about other people. I really like helping someone out by talking to God about it.”
Kyla – “My favorite thing is that I pray for her! And I make her cards. Not just one card… but lots!”
These heroes chose to work as doctors, nurses, and other medical jobs. What job do you want to do when you grow up?
Sola – “I want to be a neonatalist, which is a doctor for really small babies!”
Kyla – “Hmm… I don’t know! Not yet. But I will know soon!”
Correne prays with the girls each night for doctors, nurses, and all healthcare workers, then Sola and Kyla pray for each of their heroes, Ms. Wendy and Ms. Kim. And because Sola has exhibited her love for praying for others, she has started keeping a prayer journal.
What can we learn from Sola and Kyla? That serving others by serving Christ allows us to grow as Christians, as well as in our relationships with each other, our families, and with Him. No matter how small, nothing we do in the name is Christ is ever wasted.
Thank you, Sola and Kyla, and all of you who provided Help for Heroes!
Want to learn more about GFC’s serving opportunities? Click here to visit our Serve page.
