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It didn't seem like such a big deal at first. All we wanted —"we" being me, Liz, Val, Kris, Katie, Jeanne, Anna, and the rest of our small group Bible study—was to find a way to love others.

Here's the thing. Our youth group's study theme that year was "Love God and Love Others." Our leader said those two things were the measuring stick of how well we were living out our faith.

We all felt we were pretty good at loving God. We went to church, did our devotions, prayed, even thought pure thoughts—much of the time. Loving God? We had that down pat.

Not so fast, said our leader. If a person isn't loving others on the outside, he said, a person isn't really loving God on the inside.

Well, if that meant loving each other, we were doing great. We never missed our meetings, and we did everything together. But our leader said that loving God means more than just loving our friends. We had to take our love outside of our little circle.

"If you really want to love God," our leader said, "you have to love others, too. Not just each other, but those who aren't very lovable."

Then he opened his New Testament and started reading from Luke.

"Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence—and … love your neighbor as well as you do yourself" (The Message, Luke 10:27).

Our leader then read the story of the Good Samaritan, which explains just who a "neighbor" is. It's anyone—nearby or not, lovable or not—who needs our love.

There was no way to ignore what he'd read. Clearly the next step was to take love outside our circle—and into the world.

We decided to try to love a group of people we wouldn't normally hang with, people who maybe don't get too much love, right in our neighborhood. We decided we'd demonstrate our Christian love at the local nursing home. And since Christmas was on the way, we came up with a plan.

We got a list of names from the nursing home of those residents who, for whatever reason, probably wouldn't receive any gifts that year: Berniece, Frank, Ellen, Robert, James, Alice, Herbert, Viola, Wesley, Luella. We also made a list of gift ideas: Western novels, after-shave lotion, socks, lap blankets, slippers, wall decorations, perfume, stuffed animals, picture frames, small radios.

Then we asked for help from a service organization that gave money to students doing community volunteer work. (Really cool thing: They not only gave us $20 for each gift and $25 for wrapping paper and supplies, but they also threw in enough for a pizza dinner while we wrapped the gifts.)

A few days later, we headed to the local discount store, divided up the names, and each took off with our lists and carts.

As I zipped up and down aisles, I thought that loving others was a ton of fun. Jeanne passed by and I heard her say, "Berniece is just going to love these slippers!" They were those big animal slippers—fat cats to be exact—and I wondered if maybe Berniece might want something a little more, you know, small and old fashioned, with flowers embroidered above the toes. It was tough to tell, seeing as I'd never even met her.

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