For more than twenty years, our church tradition on October 31st is one of the busiest times for the children’s department. We organize game booths and activities for our kids at church so they would not go door to door for ‘trick or treating’. Each year we have game booths, a talent show, a movie night and candy bags for the kids, and we call it ‘Family Fun Night’.

Praise the Lord, for giving me the idea of turning Halloween night into Family Blessing Night! In the Summer of 2011, The Lord gave me the desire to help the Samaritan’s purse project by packing shoe boxes. I contacted the Samaritan’s Purse organization to gather all the information and prepared beforehand for the whole family to get involved.  I made announcements to our congregations and shared with them the impact story DVD. I assigned gift items for each family to bring. I encouraged every family member to come with their gifts of blessing to others.  More importantly, our kids need to know that God blesses us simply because He enjoys blessing His kids. God also blesses us with a specific purpose in mind and wants us to be a blessing to others as well. Our blessings should flow towards others. When we do good to others, God will take care of our needs, and our blessings to others will come back to us.  This is such a great opportunity for parents to teach their children.  I believe our children must see a living example of the principles that we teach them.  As we trust and obey God, our children will grow up knowing how to relate to HIM because they have seen us do it first.  The more I think about it, the more I get excited; the more I get excited the more energy I get!  2011 is the year that I changed our Family Fun Night to Family BLESSING Night.

Our Family Blessing Night starts with a complimentary dinner from the Children’s Department, followed by the impact story message DVD from Samaritan’s Purse to show our kids the purpose of this packing event.  Not only did our kids have lots of fun that night, they also learned generosity and how to share.  Most of all they can see how fortunate they are in comparison to those unfortunate children all over the world. Parents sort the gift items first and then kids pack the boxes. Parents check the boxes, sort by age group and pack them in the big boxes.

We also have games and activities, but the main event is packing shoe boxes.  I remember the year of 2012 was an extraordinary year for us, because we sowed the most seeds in that year.  Our kids have a joyous challenge, because they have to pair up with their parents for the games. The kids have to do pushups while their parents pack shoe boxes. The longer it takes the parent to pack the shoe box, the more push ups their children have to do.  I call it a divine connection between parent and children. This connection will draw the family together and closer to God.

Our Family BLESSING Night turns out to be one of the greatest annual opportunities for parents to put actions of love behind their faith.  In fact, I think this is the best time for parents and children to sow seeds in the ground; the more seeds they sow, the more abundant harvest they will reap in God’s time.

For each shoe box we pack, I say we sow one seed. For the last three years, we sowed a total of six hundred seeds. Praise the Lord! Praise Him for His favor that provides opportunities for our congregation to sow seeds all over the world and enable us to make it happen!  What matters is that we are walking in the blessing of God and we are leaving a legacy of blessing to generation after generation.

Thank you Lord that we can be a miracle to others. I believe and declare the more we get involved in blessing others, the more prosperity we will experience. ^“For if you give, you will get! Your gift will return to you in full and overflowing measure, pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, and running over. Whatever measure you use to give—large or small—will be used to measure what is given back to you.” (Luke 6:38 TLB).

Le Huynh serves in the Children’s Department of Brampton Chinese Baptist Church