The Purple Pages

Once upon a time, funding was extra tight at J.C's Lighthouse, and support was at an all time low. There were a few donations but it never seemed to be more than some colored paper and the volunteer time to do some activities. The activities director and the appropriations department head spoke and in despair over the lack of funding and support both were very sad for the children. They worked over several ideas to help, but unfortunately there were no easy answers. Then almost giving up, they decided to turn their attention off of their own bad situation and do what they could for someone else. They tied the children into the effort and presented them with the donated paper. Purple in color it wasn't the right color for letter head or support letters to companies, but it was a favorite color for the girls unit and so they welcomed the chance to do something constructive with the paper.

Soon they had settled into the idea that they could serve others by putting out flyers that shared facts on abuse and neglect, as well as information on how to be a foster family and a few valuable runaway and abuse hot lines.

The children designed all parts of the flyers, even pictures and graphics. It gave them a voice. Some of them worked on the computer to compile their efforts and invested summer days to helping the project. Soon several 100 purple papers were ready to be distributed.

There was some discussion amongst the children. Then with staff approval and a call to check legalities here in the small town of Seguin, Tx., on the evening of July the 3rd the girls opted to leave their air conditioned comfort for the lengthy distribution of their purple pages. Where better to put them but the 4th of July parade route. Yes, these fine girls helped lots of Texans to be more aware of the needs of their community's children and the failing foster system.

Some students opted to bring with them, to the parade itself, several other copies which they handed out selectively to people they would like to be fostered by based solely on appearance. It was interesting, funny and beautiful. There is no way to even know the impact the girls made on their community.

Naturally, the staff had to get back to work as to rallying support for up coming events and projects again. It was with great discomfort, after such an enlightening event, to return immediately to the grind of near begging, in letter form, to local companies for support. As the staff rough drafted different letters and ideas and tried to print them out they discovered the first shocker.

Even though all the pages the girls had requested were clearly printed, there wasn't enough ink in the printer for even one clear letter page. It was confirmed that the last page was clearly printed from the remaining purple pages pile. On faith, the staff gathered another three fist fulls of the royal purple paper from the storage area and loaded it into the printer.

He then called up the office record of the children's work and low and behold clearly printed another 150 precious purple pages out of an empty ink cartridge. No business letters of support went out but several of the girls requested the supervision and permission to hand out the seemingly gifted statements in the neighborhoods they might enjoy living in, in hopes that someone there might hook another kid up with a home.

Of course, we caved in. It was to be that those girls personally delivered, with their own love, close to 1,000 flyers. The staff that witnessed that entire event were given a gift of life that time can't steal.

But wait, it doesn't end there. When we are blessed we share and so as the story was recounted at church that Sunday we weren't the only ones touched. In fact, Community Christian Church, led by their heart, and I believe the Holy Spirit, stepped up and donated the amount needed to replace the ink cartridge and allow the girls a fun-filled, educational and well deserved field trip. ALL PRAISE BE TO GOD. And in honor of that summer and those children and that church, The Purple Pages Project has been welcomed as a permanent program of J.C's Lighthouse.

All praise and Glory bo to God!