VERVE Happs … Proud

I am so proud of this church.  This has been a pretty remarkable week…

• On Friday I got to be part of the group that delivered our presents to Dean Petersen Elementary. Dean Petersen is a local grammar school in a poverty-stricken area. For 85% of the students, English is not their first language. 100% of the students are on free or reduced lunches. It’s pretty bad. And most of them wouldn’t get a Christmas present, except for Verve. Because of the generosity of Ververs … well, I’m going to announce what happened (did we reach our goal of 260 gifts? didn’t we?) on Christmas Eve. But I’ll tell you this: Seeing the expressions on the kid’s faces when they received their presents was unbelievable.
• On Sunday we hosted the Cupcake Girls Christmas Party. About 30 girls who work in strip clubs came to be loved on and spoiled with a spa day theme. What a cool thing. And though people from around the country donated funds to make it happen, and we even had volunteers drive and fly into town to help, most of the effort came from Ververs.
• And then … this week a 10-year-old in Las Vegas committed suicide. One of the families in our church is connected to their family, and so we went into action. The family was struggling to put together the funeral and meal afterwards, so we provided the food for the meal. A bunch of Verve people cooked and bought items.

At Verve, we call all that being guerrilla lovers. The idea is that we want to ambush people with the love of God. The cool thing is that when most people show up at Verve they’re broken and hurting, and most are still struggling today. And yet we don’t use that as an excuse to not care and make sacrifices for others. That is awesome. And I am really proud to be a part of this church.