This summer Crystal's (not her real name) apartment caught fire and she lost everything.  She called Love INC.  Love INC asked Wendy to deliver a blessing basket and pray with Crystal.  The blessing basket traditionally is a Bible, a loaf of fresh bread, a set of salt and peppershakers, sparkling cider, a stemware glass for each member in family (sippy-cups for smaller children) and a picture frame.
 
When Wendy picked up the basket for delivery, she already knew that Crystal was a single mom with a little one.  With that in mind, she added her own personal touches.  Wendy had found a devotional at the Christian bookstore for Crystal.  She also added some chocolate, lotion and a candle.  She exchanged the cider for a plant and included some bubbles, a ball and book for the child.  Wendy even baked the bread herself.  She wanted to make Crystal feel special and know how special she is to God.
 
Wendy's husband, her friend Michelle, and Michelle's children visited Crystal.  Together they prayed with her, looked the place over, and took measurements to see how they could use the resources donated to Love INC to make her apartment a home again.   In addition to the blessing basket, they had gone "shopping" at the Love INC Annex, where donations are collected.  That day Crystal was given a spice rack, pots and pans, towels, soap, toilet paper, tooth paste, and other bathroom and kitchen supplies.
 
More was to come.  With the information from the first visit, a team took Crystal a bounty of things for her home:  groceries, a table and chairs, a bed for her child, a toy organizer, containers for storing clothes, even a DVD player.  Wendy also printed up a map of the churches in her area so she would be able to find a church home nearby, as she did not have a car.
 
All of the people who ministered to Crystal came from one church-- Rabbit Creek Community Church.  This church has caught the vision for how God can use them in the city of Anchorage.  In addition to volunteering individually, Rabbit Creek has organized as a church body to minister.  The executive pastor, Dane Havard, is the contact person for Love INC who coordinates group projects.  "One of our goals for 2011 is to get each small group to get on one or two Love INC projects throughout the year.  We'll have 10-20 small groups," he shared.
 
Plugging into the community and building the body is a serious part of the senior pastor, Mark's vision, and Dane himself is so passionate about it, that he asked the mission's pastor if he could take over the Love INC portion of the church's missions.  He explained how it also allows Rabbit Creek to live out Acts 2:8.  This church has been very active in going to Judea, Samaria (across Alaska and the United States) and the ends of the earth (mission work around the globe). Now Love INC is allowing them to reach out to their Jerusalem where they live.
 
Rabbit Creek is currently preparing to take their participation to a new level through a gap ministry.  Remember Michelle who visited Crystal?  She is the new coordinator for the kitchen essentials gap ministry. "I have always had a real heart for local missions," she explains.  "Very few people look at the mission field in their own back yard."  They see the poverty in the towns where they do a mission trip, but do they realize that it looks the same way right here in Anchorage?  They don't notice how poor conditions are outside their own neighborhood.  Volunteering for Love INC, Michelle has seen the need and she wants to get the whole church involved. 
 
So how does an entire church become part of a gap ministry to provide kitchen essentials?  Michelle has it covered.  The children at their vacation bible school collected kitchen supplies as their mission project this summer. After VBS, the entire body continued to collect items.  The next step is to fill the totes with supplies.
 
Michelle and her team have been working towards kicking off the kitchen essentials ministry on September 4, Labor Day weekend.  They are calling it "Labor Of Love". Again, Michelle means for everyone to be involved.  The children will make gift tags that say, "Packaged with love by _______."  Those assembling the totes will add their names.  The teens will supervise and assist the children.  Adults will be part of the assembly teams and in the days ahead, when the need arises, they will go out with their small groups to deliver the totes.  Please pray and rejoice with Rabbit Creek as they embark on this endeavor.