Letters to the Editor

Here are responses to our article on witnessing to neighbors. Perhaps you'll find one or two ideas you can use to witness to your own neighbors. Some of the suggestions are as simple as smiling and saying hello!
Marty White

We work in the food bank at church. Sometimes we can bring home food, and give it to the neighbors.
Anonymous

My husband and I made a rule many years ago to always be available for our neighbors and to always keep our door open. One of our strong gifts is the gift of service. Our services have ranged from babysitting to repairing things, and even being on call for some motherly and fatherly advice.
The Earlys

First I pray for my neighbors. I have hand delivered Christmas cards with a salvation message inside. I recently started taking some of the neighborhood children to Awana, Patch the Pirate Club, and Sunday school. I go around my neighborhood and invite everyone to church and give them a salvation tract with our church information on it.
Kristie

Our church had a community dinner of hot turkey sandwiches, potatoes, apple sauce, and pie. We served about 100 people who normally wouldn't get a hot meal, and others who came to socialize. A good time was had by all.
Scott L.

I love to make baby quilts. When a neighbor has a baby, I make a quilt especially for them, with prayer.
S. Green

I'm a student at Luton University in England, a leader at the Christian Union, and also The International Students Officer. The strategy I was inspired to implement consists of organising video nights for the students with a specific selection of movies — movies that will challenge their thinking and will easily lead to a discussion afterward.
Nella

We take a can of cookies to all of our neighbors every year and invite them into our home for a party. We also help the elderly ones with putting up their Christmas decorations.
Anonymous

I've found the greatest witness to be a smile on my face. I've found coworkers respond with a smile whether they feel like it or not. Something so simple as this often opens the door to explain why I can smile at every occasion. Because they want to know why I always appear to not have a care in the world, it's easy to talk about the Lord and the peace and security he gives me in everything! It's then that the door to hope and salvation comes. The greatest of these is love, said our Lord. It's as simple as a kind word, a smile on your face, a touch of friendship, and an open and caring heart ready to serve in even the smallest moments.
Jane

Living in Northern Ireland and in a cul-de-sac in a residential, mainly middle-class town, I find there are potentially enormous opportunities to be "salt and light" to neighbours. Neighbours perhaps even more than work colleagues see us warts and all. They know if we rush out to Church looking frazzled or preoccupied or just rushing because we're late. What sort of a witness must that be?!

I personally have had opportunity to befriend elderly neighbours who are not in the best of health. Another way in which my wife and I have been able to establish contact with various neighbours is through our children and theirs. Sleepovers (I detest the misnomer as they never sleep) sharing lifts to cinema or to school and such. It's important to let people see that we respect them, have time for them, and even that we too have similar problems to theirs. Trying to put ourselves on a pedestal or trying not to leave ourselves vulnerable to their inspection of our lives will prove to be the greatest turn-off for them.

The key thing must be time and a willingness to get our metaphorical hands dirty.
W.R. Stevenson

I say hello to those close to me, I wave as people pass by, my son and I throw the football around with our neighbor, and I even brought in some Christian bands/acts when we had a block party not long ago.
J. Harvey

In the past I've sat outside on the porch and waved and talked with my neighbors; I've watered the grass, manicured the lawns and have connected with them; I've taken in their trash cans when they were either out of town, not home, or infirmed; I've given their children treats/books/videos for Christmas and just on days when nothing was going on; we've given our neighbors our names and telephone numbers; I've shared cookies with neighbors; we've shared clothes that our children have outgrown; I've made treat bags for the kids on the street with Bible stories included; I ask the children in the neighborhood to show me their report cards and I remember their birthdays, etc; I've given children Bibles and books.
N. Brown

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