While having lunch with a friend, we began reminiscing about Memory Book Monday Nights. On most Monday evenings for ten years the contents of hundreds of Memory Books were strung from one end of my house to the other. Sometimes it got crazy as we assembled hundreds of Memory Books to fill a request from somewhere in the world. Jokingly, I’d beat a small drum so all those dedicated friends and family assembly line workers would “pick up the pace!”
Monday Nights began in 2006 when we began assembling Memory Books in the basement of my house. The assembly line quickly spread to the study, then the kitchen, the dining room, and eventually nearly every room in the house. At exactly 8:30pm, the assembling of Memory Books stopped—finished or not—to gather in the living room for dessert and prayer. All Memory Books assembled that night were prayed over: “We pray for the next hands to hold each Memory Book. Just as those who brought handkerchiefs to Paul (Acts 19), we pray, God, that You will touch the lives of the children whose hands will hold this gift.” The Memory Books are simply paper and plastic, but God promises a miracle.
Monday evening volunteers during Memory Book early years. Who are these lovely ladies? First person to identify them in an email to info@memorybooks4children.com receives an autographed copy of the soon-to-be-released children’s book, I Am Chosen!
Some Mondays there were a few of us, and other evenings dozens of friends and family members came to help assemble Memory Books destined for grieving children. Yet, many Monday evening volunteers came with their own burdens. Over the years, we shared deaths of loved ones, often unexpected, even tragic. We celebrated new births, old birthdays, a new job, and cried over someone moving away or enduring one of life’s challenges. We laughed. We sang. We cried. We grieved together. The life experiences we shared connected us to each other and to the children who would be receiving the Memory Books.
Requests continued to increase from all over the world, simply by word of mouth. As dedicated as Monday Night attendees were, we couldn’t meet the requests on our own. Memory Book materials had taken over our home, and assembly of Memory Books stretched beyond Mondays to the entire week. Knowing this was always God’s idea, Ron and I prayed God would show us the way.
While journaling one day, our daughter-in-law Holly wondered what it would cost to manufacture a journal like the one she was holding. We discovered a journal like it, manufactured in China, would cost less than those we were assembling. Thanking God, I heard a quiet voice inside say to me, “You’ve envisioned hundreds, but you need to be ready for thousands.”
Unlike the original version that was hand-assembled, the current Memory Books (as seen here) are pre-assembled with a distinctive hand-print embossed cover.
I continue to hear from many of those who attended Monday Nights about how much they miss the time together—miss doing something they knew made a difference. I miss those times, too!
This year, we are celebrating 15 years of gifting thousands of children with a Memory Book—a place to preserve and tell their stories, with the belief God heals hearts. It truly is more than paper and plastic. A Memory Book can be part of the miracle of healing God has promised.
I am forever grateful to all my dear friends and family for believing in something so simple. We all realized that God still uses dead wood to perform miracles as He did with Moses’ wooden staff. God whispered to me once, “What is your Memory Book, but dead wood?” Just as God has and is healing our hearts, my friends, He is healing the hearts and giving hope to children all over the world.
READ MORE IN OUR SPRING 2020 NEWSLETTER.
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