Caring Through Technology

“O Lord, I am scared that we won’t have enough money to pay our bills this month. And right now it’s cold and icy outside. If there’s too much ice on the roads tomorrow morning, I won’t be able to go to work. And if I can’t go to work, I won’t be able to pay my bills. Please provide for us, God.”

Although I rarely have trouble sleeping, I lay awake that night in January 2010 catastrophizing about finances. I had been praying for provisions constantly. I prayed when I couldn’t sleep, when I would try to jog away financial stress, and when we would pass the church offering plate down the row without having contributed anything to it. Providentially, family and friends came to our rescue. My mom chipped in to pay our bills for one month and the ESL class that I taught at a Spanish-speaking church took up a collection for our family. “The God who owns the cattle on a thousand hills” has a limitless arsenal of tools for answering prayers, yet He chose to use the generosity of His people to provide for us that month.

There are many people in our city right now praying that God would provide for them, and I can’t help but think that God is using our church’s “CarePortal Response Team” to directly answer some of their prayers.

CarePortal is a technology connecting platform that brings the needs of hurting children and families to the attention of local churches who can then show families Jesus’ love by meeting their tangible needs. Geoffrey Bertram, our Minister of Mobilization, first signed Church at the Cross up for CarePortal in 2019. Since then, many individuals at CATC have joined the effort. We now have 31 CarePortal Responders in our congregation and our total value of donations just passed $18,000!

Through CarePortal, CATC has had several opportunities in the past two years to help families in need. When a family of five was sleeping on the floor, the CarePortal Response Team collected beds, air mattresses, and sheets for them. The Walker family and Brooks family passed along their gently-used pack-n-plays to two patients of The Women’s Clinic in Grapevine. The Grace and Journey Life Groups as well as eight individual families sent diapers and wipes to Darlene Selinger, who then delivered them to the clinic.

Sarah Guthrie, a CATC member who works with For the Nations Refugee Outreach, connected us with a Congolese family of 14 people who recently moved to Irving. Families like the Lydays, Carsons, and Ayarams were able to pass along beds and nightstands that they no longer needed, and the Enrights cleaned out their closets so that this family would have more clothing.

Sarah, the matriarch of this refugee family, told me over dinner one evening that she loves the Lord so much and she prays all the time. Like her Biblical namesake, Sarah is a mother of many and a woman of great faith. Although she has witnessed great suffering firsthand, she has also witnessed God’s faithfulness to her family. Out of the many prayers that Sarah has prayed for provision, God has used the people of CATC through CarePortal to answer a few of them.

What an amazing God that He allows us to be part of His love and mercy to this world!