Each day is page of your memories

So it was rather cloudy today and I drove to the car wash as I do every couple of weeks to have it cleaned. When I get there its closed. I curse under my breath because my car is REALLY in need of a car wash, so I run some errands and decided to head out to the MIL house.
On my way I see these kids jumping up and down with car wash signs, I was driving to fast so at the next intersection I turned around.
I slowly rolled up to one of them (trying not to scare the wits out of some kid and for some reason I almost felt "weird" for leaning out the car window to talk to an unknown child)
Anyways the young girl jumps up and down and tells me its just down the street at here church.

I am thinking to myself "Well isn't this your lucky day you driven by 3 car washes that are closed and here's a cheap one (they were taking donations) on your way to the MIL how cool"

So I pull into the church parking lot and I am greeted with cheers of the congregation young and old. I am a little hesistant at first, not because its a church but because I do not attend church I did not want to be "converted/talk down too/told I needed to be saved" so to speak.
I park the car a jump out a few people come to shake my hand and they are SOOO excited as this was all arranged by the children and they wanted the day to be a success.

I kind of shy away and watch in amazement as 13 little kids (aged 5-17) come out of the wood work and start feverishly working away at scrubbing the dirt and grim from my car.
The pastor comes over and shakes my hand and starts to make small talk I inquire as to what they were raising money for and he tells me a story.
He explains that there was a church in Pasadena that had been in the news recently and what happened was the Pastor offered ALL people in the congregation 100$ to invest it how they see fit for 3 months and then after 3 months they would all come together with all money raised and tell their stories about how they invested there money.
One lady took the $100 dollars to local book stores and spoke to the store owners and asked "I have this $100 dollars and I want to buy books for the cancer ward at our local children hospital would you like to match my $100"
She raised $10,000.00 and then bought her books.

So the Pastor had heard the story of this church and after the 3 months was up the church had raised over $300,000.00. And it was never about the money, they wanted them to think outside the box and do something that effected the community.
So and he wanted to challenge his own church to do the same thing (they are way smaller and he explains its not about the money its about thinking (getting the kids to think) outside the box.)
So all these kids that were scrubbing my car had pooled their money to buy car wash supplies to get a return on the money they had invested(they were all given $50).

I warmed my heart to hear this and the people who were waiting for there cars all sat and talked about life and things that they do in there community.
I talked about the Red Cross and how my husband used all his vacation time so we could go to help. He asked if we were still active and I told him about the fires.
He gave me a huge hug and thanked me for all that I did (so strange I know)
And then he asked if I would come to this church and share the story with them.
I agreed.

I donated $100 to the donation bin and everyone cheered (I didn't do it for the cheers and I tried to be sneaky about it but one of the older ladies whipped it out and waved it for all to see)

I believe it all comes back.