Meeting Faithful Amaya

God blessed me in a special way today because I got to meet my sweet OCC friend Amaya and her family. Last fall my friend Sarah told me about a blog she'd read about six-year-old Amaya's desire to pack lots of shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child. Amaya's mom (also named Sarah) could have easily squashed Amaya's vision by telling her that the family would pack boxes together or that they didn't have time for an extra project or that she should wait until she was older or....(you get the idea).

But Sarah and Chris Latello want to raise their children to pursue big dreams and help them to know that we have a big God. So they encouraged Amaya to make some homemade Christmas ornaments and launched a blog and Facebook campaign for Amaya to sell them to finance her shoeboxes.

In the end, Amaya packed 37 boxes and totally financed the $7.00 per box suggested shipping for them. Her story was told in a blog on the Samaritan's Purse website (click here to see that) and was also mentioned in the Operation Christmas Child special report that is sent to donors at the end of the season.

Today the Latellos are on their way to their vacation in Massachusetts and blessed me by stopping to meet me at the Erie Chick-fil-A where I got to hug Amaya (now age 7) and meet her parents and her sister Paige (age 6) and her brother Jaxson (age 5). I got to hear stories of God's faithfulness in their lives and how He's blessed their one-year-old auto repair business which I KNOW is really a ministry. Sarah and Chris are dedicated to helping provide financial help to families who are adopting children and are determined to use every avenue God gives them to support the ministries He brings into their lives. They have modeled faith in God by pursuing His dreams in their lives and it's reaping big rewards in the lives of their children. You can click here to read Sarah's blog "Are We There Yet?"



I've been inspired by Amaya to remember that God is bigger than we can imagine and that all He wants is our faithfulness. Our faithfulness may mean packing one shoebox to bless a child in Jesus' name or it may mean stepping out in faith to see God multiply our efforts and pack hundreds of boxes or thousands of boxes.

When we are faithful to the call of our faithful God the possibilities are endless.