When we first arrived here in Pasadena, our church organized a “pounding” for our family. Usually, a pounding is a party where people bring all kinds of food and household goods to stock up a pantry. We’ve been blessed with them by other churches, but MBC did things a little differently. Rather than food and household goods, they “pounded” us with gift cards. What fun! While we waited for our house in Oklahoma to sell, many of those gift cards made the difference for us when it came to maintaining balanced books for two different residences. We were and are still SO thankful for the church’s generosity!

But we had a problem. While many of the cards had names on them so that we could properly thank the givers, many of them were completely anonymous. I’m a thank you card Nazi, so this made me super anxious. How would people know how much I appreciated their gift if I couldn’t thank them personally?!

I got over it because there was nothing I could do, short of God giving me the names of these people in a dream. Which He didn’t do. He has His reasons, I’m sure.

Then, it happened again a few months ago. One of the Sunday school teachers handed me a gift bag. “Who is this from?,” I asked her, not seeing a card. “Oh, some lady,” she said. Well, this eliminated about half of the church. (Maybe less!) I opened the bag to find two ADORABLE dresses for our girls. Some precious woman in the church sewed these two dresses for our girls… and I had no idea who she was so that I could thank her! I made sure and had the girls in them the next week, hoping that someone — anyone! — would tell me who had made them, or, could tell me, “Hey! They look great in those adorable dresses I made!”

But no one did. Sigh.

Not too much later, someone left some Disney collectible figurines in a grocery bag in Wes’s conference room. No note, just a slip of paper saying “to Jenn and Wes.” No amount of detective work on my part could uncover who had left these. Another gift and no thank you card to write! Out of my comfort zone here, y’all!

And this past Sunday? It happened again. The sweet ladies in my Sunday school class surprised me with gifts for our new home, and would you believe it? There were some gifts with no names. I plan on writing a general note to the whole class, but I still feel I would be remiss if I didn’t say a big fat generic thank you right here.

To all of you anonymous (and not anonymous!) gift givers out there, from gift cards to dresses to figurines — THANK YOU! We’re so blessed just by being here at this church, and then you bless us beyond that by remembering us and loving us with your prayers, thoughts, kind words, and thoughtful gifts. We so appreciate you!