Every year, Epiphany celebrates the gift of Jesus to us by giving a gift as a congregation to our community or to a missionary effort. The gift is funded by our Christmas Eve offering. This year, our “Epiphany Gift” will be providing sleeping cots for our area’s homeless residents.
“During the Christmas seasons, it seems very appropriate for us as a church to give better sleeping arrangements for people without a place to stay,” said the Rev. Peter Frank, Epiphany’s Rector.
The cots will be used by Fairfax County’s Hypothermia Prevention Program. The program provides a warm shelter to our area’s homeless neighbors, often at local churches, from December 1 through April 1 every year. FACETS, the local ministry who operates the hypothermia prevention program, reports that currently all they have to offer are thin mats which they spread out on the floor.
We would like to be able to meet this need by covering the cost of a large portion of the 80 needed cots, for a total of $4,000. We are currently waiting to get a clearer picture on the cost for each cot. To do this, all giving at our Christmas Eve services that isn’t otherwise designated will go to support this gift. If you are not going to be able to be present on Christmas Eve, but still would like to support this project, make a financial offering at any time, and designate it for this year’s “Epiphany Gift.”
“God has been so generous to us. He sent his Son, who began his life on earth sleeping in not on a bed, but in a feeding trough because there was ‘no room at the inn.’ This year, we have a chance to be generous to others in his name by providing them a bed to sleep on in a warm place on cold winter nights,” said Fr. Peter.