NEWS

Dear A2S Family,

At A2S, we often talk about serving the Lord with our gifts: our time, talent and treasures. Naturally, Christmastime is the season of the year when we discuss gifts the most out of the whole year- the gifts that the wisemen brought, the gifts that we exchange with one another, and of course, the gift of God’s son come to earth to dwell among us in the form of his birth.

In Nigeria, our gifts are typically focused around food instead of toys or electronics. Nigerians often say that Christmas is sacred because it’s the one day of the year that no one in their family goes hungry and this often comes with great sacrifice and planning on their part to ensure they have enough. In fact, it is a Nigerian Christmas tradition to prepare special food and present it to their family and neighbors with the hope that they will also be rewarded with an invitation to come inside and eat with them. Nigerians share our food with one another and we generously give the gift of food to one another.

At A2S, we carry this tradition forward this holiday season to make sure we can give the gift of food to as many people as we can possibly help, and we focus on accomplishing this by serving one another and by serving our community. Last week, our staff visited our Internal Displacement Persons camp to deliver food to the more than 3,500 residents of the camp.

We also purchased food for Christmas to give a week’s worth of food supplies to 800 Nigerian families (feeding approximately 4,000 individuals in all). Serving one another is so important to us because it is often in the act of service that we experience God and others experience God through us. Without service there is no development into Godly stewards; and as we have talked about in our last several end of the year newsletters, we are all on our unique paths toward Godly stewardship.

We see this stewardship play out in the ways our A2S scholars serve one another and serve our community- the medical scholars come back to serve at the IDP camp and the Basketball & Empowerment Camp, others come back to help as teaching volunteers in the After School Academy, and still others come back as interns. Some even come back after university to become employees at A2S.

We want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your gifts this year and how your gifts have made gift-giving, servanthood and stewardship possible in the lives of many of our A2S students, scholars and staff. This holiday season, may we be the hands and feet of Christ as we serve one another and serve others in honor of the greatest gift we have received in Jesus Christ.

As we quickly approach Christmas, we humbly ask that you might consider sharing your gifts with us to help the youth in Nigeria. As 1 Peter 4:10 states,

“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms,” so that we might share the joy of our blessings with others.