A HUGE thanks to our volunteers, who continue to help Discovery Land, Highway 252, FamJamz, and Family Ministry serve children and their families. If you are a current volunteer, please join us for the 3rd Annual Orange Awards on June 5, 2011 at 6p.

RSVP by emailing alison.bisesi@ubcmiami.org or by filling out the form below. Please indicate whether or not you need childcare in your RSVP.

This past weekend, with the help of their parents, Abigial & Rebekah Raffalski passed out Feed Miami bags to their neighborhood & did a mini-food drive to restock our UBC pantry. What a blessing this family is to all of the people who use this pantry! Here is a letter they received from one of their neighbors, that I thought we should share with you:

Dear Abigail & Rebekah -
What you are doing is wonderful. I taught my children from an early age the importance of giving & volunteering in order to help those who are not so fortunate. My children are 28 years & 23 years old - to this day they continue to do good work for others. I am so proud of them as I am sure your parents are of each of you. May you continue to help others throughout your lives and you can always count on this family to assist in your future endeavors.

Parents, mark your calendars now… on Saturday, June 18th there will be a City Serve day, which is a great opportunity for your family to SERVE TOGETHER! Registration & additional information will be available soon. Until then, continue to look for opportunities to show your children how to LOVE & SERVE like Jesus.

If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need, but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with action and in truth. - 1 John 3:17-18

Click here to download & print the Easter invitation & then pass out to your family & friends. Follow this link for more information.

Thanks to all the families who came out for the Family Picnic this past Saturday… We hope you had a great time together.

And again, a HUGE THANKS to Florida Baptist Children’s Home for allowing us to use their property. FBCH is one of our missions partners at UBC - click here to find out more information about their programs & how you can help.

UBC recognizes the vast responsibility of parenthood and is committed to preparing parents of babies to understand their new God-given roles. We have written a Parent’s Covenant and offer our parents the opportunity to accept these responsibilities before God and their church family in a ceremony we call Parent Dedication.

To assist parents in understanding these responsibilities and how UBC joins you in them, we offer four Parenting Intensive classes which must be completed before participating in the Parent Dedication ceremony. The Intensives begin Sunday, March 20th and continue weekly through April 10th. We meet in room 202 from 10:15 am to noon. Click here to register & make sure to mark your calendars for Parent Dedication, Sunday, May 15th, 2011.

Contact Alison at 305-448-4425 ext. 244 or alison.bisesi@ubcmiami.org if you have any problems or questions about registering!

This month we’ve been talking about the virtue of kindness, which is showing others they are valuable by how you treat them. No one can say, do or give anything to us that tops what God did for us when He sent Jesus to save us. He did this not because we deserve it, but because He loves us. That’s why everyone is important and valuable to God. He made them, and He loves them like sons and daughters; and that’s one reason Jesus wants us to treat others kindly: to show them they are valuable to God. He goes so far as to say that when we treat someone kindly, especially one less fortunate than ourselves, it’s as if we’re treating Him that way. We’ll see that in Matthew 25:35-40, our Bible lesson for this Sunday.

Have you seen people with signs that say “Hungry” or who tell you something about their family’s needs? Imagine Jesus holding that sign. Would you show Him kindness? I bet you would! We’re encouraging you to look around your community for people in need and treat them as Jesus would. There are many ways we can help, and here are some ideas to get you started:

• Participate in Feed Miami – Love the Homeless. Bring toiletries and non-perishable food items to UBC this Sunday, and next Sunday you will have the opportunity to assemble these items in Kids Care bags for the Homeless.
• Help your child choose 3 things of their own (books, games, or unneeded clothes) and take them to one of our Mission Partners (Florida Baptist Children’s Home, Miami Rescue Mission, Touching Miami with Love, Open House Ministries, Agape Family Ministries)
  
• Find a jar for loose change and encourage your family to fill it up, then donate the funds to a Homeless Shelter (Click here for the National Homeless Shelter Directory)
  

We have purchased some wonderful books that we are encouraging you to check-out and read at home as a family. For each book, we’ve prepared questions to discuss afterwards. Click here for the list of books and their descriptions. These books may be checked out from Alison Bisesi at the Family Ministry Table by the kiosks. We have also prepared resources to assist you as you discuss important issues like homelessness with your children. Just imagine the benefits of spending time focusing on the ills in our society that Christ wants to change through His people:

• By parents teaching their children about homelessness, it will help both generations become more aware, compassionate, caring people.
• By parents participating in Feed Miami – Love the Homeless, families will appropriately reach out to, rather than fear a homeless person.
• By parents teaching their children about homelessness, it helps each family member not to develop preconceptions and judgment of people.
• By teaching about homelessness and expressing acts of kindness, we help children not to be so egocentric and focused on their own “wants,” encouraging them to be focused on the “needs” of others.
• By teaching children about homelessness, they will be empowered to make a difference by “bringing God’s kingdom to earth as it is in heaven.”

I believe that within our UBC families are children who God will call out for even greater things- things like eradicating homelessness. Are you cooperating with Him and preparing them for His service? Be here this weekend, and we’ll do it together!

For the next 2 Sundays (February 13th & 20th), we will be collecting the above items for our KINDNESS PACKS. Bins will be placed next to the check-in kiosks during all 3 Sunday services. Click here for a downloadable list of items being collected.

Before you begin purchasing or collecting items for the kindness pack, make sure to check out our new Weekly Coupons & Promotions page, which includes deals from Publix, Winn Dixie, Target, and CVS on several of the items above

Kindness packs will be assembled on Sunday February 27th - stay tuned for more information on assembling, as well as regular Family Ministry email & blog updates throughout the month of February about Feed Miami: Love the Homeless.

Hopefully this week you will have received our January Family Ministry E-News, if not click here to subscribe and we will send it to you. We spent November serving Miami by collecting and distributing tons of Feed Miami bags. Since Feed Miami, UBC has established an on-going food pantry which had provided emergency food to many UBC families and individuals from the community. As we distribute food though, there is the need to collect more and for volunteers to sort and maintain the food in the pantry.

Our hope for 2011 is that Feed Miami, but more importantly living out Jesus’ call to serve and love the community, will become ingrained in the fabric of your family. Below we’ve included a list of ideas from UBC families and Family Ministry on how to make this happen. We hope that this serves only as a starting point to the great ways God will use your family in 2011!

• Our kids can identify family, friends, neighbors that would be interested in donating on a monthly basis.  Once these people have been identified then a regular monthly food pick up can be scheduled.  For example, my neighbor wants to be an ongoing partner in Feed Miami so on the 1st of every month the child picks up the food from that home.
• We keep a Feed Miami bag in the car as one of our shopping bags and it will serve as a reminder whenever we see a “buy one, get one” deal at Publix to pick up an extra can, etc. which we will accumulate in a bag or box and bring in monthly.
• When we did our food drive in November, we hit our last two neighborhoods and actually did not solicit in our current neighborhood. We plan to distribute bags this winter/spring and do another drive. Our goal is to do two per year on a going forward basis
• Our kids can do a specific chore in exchange for purchasing a certain number of food items to donate on a weekly basis.  For example, if washing the dog is not one of their regular chores, the child can wash the dog and purchase 5 pantry items.  What’s nice about this is that if the child is really motivated, he/she can do extra chores for extra pantry items.
• As a family  decide to give up dessert (or some other way you spend money) once a week and use that money to fill up a Feed Miami bag and bring it to the pantry. Help your kids understand what it means to sacrifice something personal to help someone else.
• Take a break from your favorite TV show this week and instead sign-up to help sort and maintain the UBC food pantry. Email the day and time you are interested to feedmiami@ubcmiami.org and your family can come help out. No volunteer is too young or too old!

Maybe you need to pick up a few extra Feed Miami bags? Do you have a great idea that is working in your family? Or is your family ready to take the next step and serve together locally or globally? Please don’t hesitate to email us at FamilyMinistry@ubcmiami.org.