From Units 4, 5 and 11
Hey, everyone!
Hopefully your heart is filling with the peace of that special something called the Christmas season! And hopefully your heart won't be filled with all the cholesterol and saturated fat that comes with another piece of that special something that calls for loads of Christmas seasonings!
Don't mean to be all Grinchy about it, but for their health's sake, sometimes some folks might need to be a little careful about all Christmas spritzes, Christmas stollens, and Christmas panetones that come flying our way during the holidays!
Not to call anyone out, but starting with a certain "right jolly old elf"!
I read the other day that if Santa were to actually eat all the cookies left out for him on "the eve"
…figuring that 76% of Americans identify themselves as "Christmas celebrators"
…but 85% of those households have "out grown" believing that St Nick's actually going to stop by
…that leaves 11,400,000 homes with kids who potentially believe in Santa.
Calculating conservatively that if in only 10% of these homes, kids actually leave Santa snacks (my dad always said Kris liked a cold beer at some stops!), that's 1,140,000 plates and glasses of cookies and milk.
"Two regular-size Nabisco Chips Ahoy cookies, according to the manufacturer's analysis, contain 100 calories and about 5g of fat. An eight-ounce glass of 2% milk contains 130 calories and 5g of fat…"
That's only 230 calories and 10g of fat. Not bad.
Except if he eats that 1,140,000 times in one night, that's 262,200,000 calories! It takes 3,500 extra calories to add an extra pound of weigh to the average bod. That means that if Santa weighed, say, 240 lbs when he started his route, he'd weigh 75,154 lbs by time he returned home in the morning!
Yikes! I don't know if he could even make it back! Rudolph's good but not THAT good!
On the other hand, we almost took that many Christmas cookies and sweets to the Morgan County prison on Tuesday! Each made with the love of Jesus for men serving their sentence and spending their Christmas behind prison walls…
WOW! What a time we had! Those guys were so thankful for all the Christmas deliciousness that you all made! They feasted on an amazing dinner of smoked turkey (300 lbs of it! Thanks, Dicky!), potatoes, stuffing, rolls, green beans, Heidi's homemade cranberry sauce, and TONS of brownies, cakes, pies, fudge and cookies (thanks to all of you!!), served with a Triple C smile, "straight from the heart"!!
After dinner was served, they sang Lee's own Christmas carols with our praise team, laughed at a hilarious skit of Devon and Travis, listened to beauuuutiful singing about a brave little boy and a girl in the dark and a labor of love, with no mother's heart to hold. Then they heard a message about the Christmas love of Jesus…What God did was simply indescribable! I had prayed so much that men would do three things that night: laugh, cry,and listen.
Bam!
Andy Morgan told me about a month ago, "This dinner is for a young man we haven't met who is spending his first Christmas in prison. He's far from home, very alone and afraid."
"Wow!" I thought. "That is SOOO true!"
I think I met that young man a couple of times that night.
A young man came through on his second time around and looked me in the face. His eyes were glassy and watery. "Grazias por la comida," he said. "De nada", I said. "El placer es nuestro."
Y'know, I think guys came thinking a church was providing a room full of convicts with a Christmas dinner. They found that Jesus was throwing them a Christmas party! They went back to their cells knowing that He offers His love and a new life to them.
"When the Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and criminals, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with these sinners?”On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2)
I think 180 guys went to bed Tuesday night with their tummies stuffed, their spirits and cholesterol high, and some with a mind full of questions, and many with a heart full of thanks, maybe a few with a future full of Heaven!
Merry Christmas, Units 4,5,and 11 of the Morgan County Correctional Facility!
And THANKS! everyone!!