Towards the end of last year, we celebrated our 25th birthday.
We paused to reflect, to thank God for his goodness and faithfulness and to acknowledge the privilege it is to partner with what he is doing across the world.
As we start out a new year and a new decade, we do so with as much passion as ever to bring hope, help and healing to our hurting world.
Delivering shoeboxesLink to this section
There has been much activity in recent months, but I want to highlight our Christmas Shoebox delivery to Latvia that took place just before Christmas. Our wonderful friend, Frances Anderson was on the trip for the 5th time and shares some of her experience.
Frances's ReportLink to this section
Our visit brought us to a place called Liepāja, and there was much excitement that we’d arrived!
Our team was split into two groups so we could get around as many places as possible — we had around 1200 boxes and 40 baby packs to give out.
Wherever we went we received the warmest welcomes from the adults and the children. At the end of one of the visits, one of the workers told us the children (and the adults) felt they had never experienced such a lovely time.
The adults were surprised at how animated the children were. She said they were so ‘attracted’ to us because of the joy and love they felt! Is there any greater compliment than that? Throughout the trip there were so many examples of God’s connections, such as:
- When we arrived at one place we were short of older boys and girls boxes and when we opened two of the 5 – 9 age boxes both had been wrongly labelled and they were for 10 – 14’s so we had exactly what we needed!
- Two sisters (in different age groups) got the same, very distinctive, hat/scarf/glove sets in different colours in their boxes!
…I could go on and on!
On a personal level for me this was my 5th trip and my passion increases each year — with each year having its own blessings. Looking forward to next already!
Our desire to remind these wonderful children that they are valued and loved fuels so much of what we do in Eastern Europe and beyond.
In many of our projects across the world we need more people who will regularly support one of these kids to help us offer them hope for their future. If you think you could offer an expression of love through monthly giving, please get in touch to join in our child sponsorship program.
Like Frances has done, the opportunity is also open to you to come visit one of our projects.
32 County Prayer NetworkLink to this section
In the first Saturday of this new year we had the joy of hosting a prayer event at our HQ in Ballyards Castle, that gathered church leaders and ministries from across Ireland. Our dream is to develop and a 32 county prayer network and provide an environment to pray, learn, encourage and cheer one another on in our pursuit of ‘His Kingdom Come’ in every part of this island.
If you would like to know more about the story of Drop Inn’s first 25 years, our book ‘Family on Mission’ is available to purchase.