Day 16: Battery and Light Bulb Giveaway

By Kaler Carpenter

For Day #16 of 30 Days of Kindness we went door-to-door giving away free light bulbs and batteries to shine the light of God's love to our Oneonta community!

Due to the cold weather conditions, I did not want to ask anyone else to spend hours in the cold being miserable; so, determined to make sure that we see all 30 projects  through to completion, I loaded up a basket full of bulbs, bundled up, and trekked out on my own. For this Acts of Kindness, I picked a new neighborhood for us to reach, the Oneonta's 1st Ward.

I had a few memorable experiences with this door-to-door AoK:

• The first house I went to was a homeowner that acted like he wasn't interested, but, I peaked his curiosity since I was doing this AoK when it was so cold outside. He asked me what I was raising money for, I told him about God's love, and the new church. He told me he wasn't interested, but later, he drove by when I was a few houses down, flagged me down, made a donation, and asked me more about the church.
• Many people acted like they didn't need any light-bulbs. I kind of felt like most of these people were just telling me this to get me to leave (like when I passed out batteries door-to-door), but it would be rude for me to call them out on it. As I stood on one lady's porch, she told me that she didn't need any light bulbs. I paused, and then pointed to the porch light above my head that lacked a light bulb. I then showed her my stool that I was carrying and offered to change it for her. She chuckled, gave me the go ahead, and promised to tell her woman's group about our church.
• I met a musician that is the same age as me from Jamaica named Dwayne Rose. Thanks to my love for Jamaican music, we hit it off. He was raised by a Preacher and was very supportive of what I was doing. In fact, Mr. Rose was so supportive, that he sang me a song. His sweet pipes warmed my heart that cold evening and gave me the strength to keep going. Dwayne told me he would like to sing at one of our upcoming shows, I look forward to it.
• At the next house, I got to talk with a middle-aged man who was shunned by the Jehovah's Witnesses when he was a teenager and has been turned off from church and religion ever since. I could tell that he was still hurt from the experience. I got to share with him how we go door-to-door to show love and bless others (not to convert people), and how everybody is welcome at our church, no matter what their background is. We talked for 15 minutes and I would like to think it helped to heal some of his past hurts.

At the end of the night, I had given away almost all of the light bulbs, I told a neighborhood about God's love, and I warmed up with a slice of cold cheese pizza from Joe's.