“…and a child shall lead them…” — 1992
In November of 1992, we hired an operating room technician at Provo Surgical Center who was in dire straits. She had recently moved from Tennessee to Utah with her three young children because she had been deserted by her abusive husband and because she wanted to be close to the headquarters of the Church. She could only afford to rent a ramshackle apartment in a destitute part of town, a place where she felt uneasy and unsafe letting her children out of the apartment. Not long thereafter, I was asked to take a donated table to her apartment, and upon witnessing the deplorable circumstances in which she was living, and her empty cupboards and refrigerator, I promptly asked the Bishop for permission to have our ward assist this woman, which permission was promptly given. Once again, the Willow Creek 6th Ward opened hearts, shelves, and wallets. The ward donated almost $3,000, hundreds of dollars of food, many toys to provide a Christmas for the children, and our ward almost completely furnished her bare apartment. The most heart-warming occurrence of this whole experience occurred in our garage. The Young Women’s’ presidency had sorted all of the donated toys into four piles in our garage: new toys, toys in excellent condition, used but functional toys, and then those destined for Deseret Industries. We had invited this woman to bring her children to our home to sort through clothing and toys, taking those they wanted. We wrapped and hid the new toys which would be given on Christmas, and pushed the Deseret Industries pile to the back of the garage, expecting that the children would select toys from the two remaining piles. Upon their arrival, the children stood in awe of the sight they beheld. After viewing all the toys momentarily, all three went directly to the Deseret Industries pile. It was as if they couldn’t even hope to own toys as nice as those in the other two piles. Having been told they could have any or all of the toys in the garage, they promptly filled their mother’s car with toys from the Deseret Industries pile. The little two year old girl fell in love with a well-worn doll from the Deseret Industries pile which she would not part with, despite there being new dolls and stuffed animals in the other piles. What we had considered cast-off toys were treasures beyond price for these children. Those of us who witnessed this remarkable event learned something of humility, of gratitude, and of caring that day that we will never forget. It was only with our persuasion that the mother put some toys from the other two piles in her car along with the other toys. “For I was an hungered and ye gave me bread, thirsty and ye gave me drink, a stranger and ye took me in…” (Matthew 25:30-35).
Click here to return to the Personal Life Journal index