| Dear
I'm sending you this urgent message by e-mail because time is short. We already have 547,000 Angel Tree children signed up to receive a Christmas gift this year.
The big push to get ready has begun.
For only $8.52 a child, you can help provide an Angel Tree Christmas and the Good News of the Gospel to a child and family of a prisoner. AND, because of the special matching grant challenge, every dollar you donate will be matched. So your gift can go twice as far to help us reach Angel Tree children with God's love! |
My Christmas wish list this year is very simple.
You can make me a very happy man this Christmas by doing three simple things:
First, pray for the Angel Tree kids. Pray that we would be able to reach all 547,000 of them this year. Pray that their hearts would be open to the love of Jesus. And pray for their parents in prison, that this witness of the Gospel would touch them, too.
Second, take a moment to send a gift right now. It just takes a click, and you deliver gifts of love and the message of hope. And the matching grant doubles the power of your gift to reach twice as many kids.
Third, please forward this e-mail to those on your e-mail list who share your love of children. If you ever got an e-mail that was worth sharing, it's the story of Angel Tree.
Here's just one example of what your Angel Tree gift can do.
Eight-year-old Annabel Marquez had just finished having a fun day with her father — when he was arrested right in front of her for possessing a weapon while on parole.
A perfect childhood memory shattered in an instant. That trauma turned to a dull ache in the years that followed, as Annabel would see her father only twice a year.
Annabel remembers clearly the void of the first Christmas her father was in prison, when Christmas came and went without a gift from her dad under the tree.
But all that changed the following Christmas.
The Marquez family arrived home to find a big box on the front doorstep. Opening the mysterious box that had a picture of an angel on the side, Annabel's mom found two handsomely wrapped presents.
On Christmas morning, when Annabel unwrapped the adorable purple teddy bear, she clutched it tightly, treasuring the fact that it was from her father. For Annabel, whose hurt had been so great the previous year, this gift felt like a warm embrace! Indeed it was a double embrace, from her earthly father and her Heavenly One.
![Annabel Marquez: Restored to both her father AND her Heavenly Father!]()
Now 19 years old, Annabel helps other children by volunteering with Angel Tree each Christmas.
Last year, in fact, Annabel opened her apartment for the kids to come receive their gifts. "Their parents were so nervous, saying, 'Don't mess up her carpet with all the wrapping paper!' But I was just saying, 'Mess it up! I love doing this! I absolutely love it!'"
The passion and sincerity in Annabel's voice ring out as she explains, "Prison Fellowship's Angel Tree has impacted my life so much. When my father went in, I was so hurt — I was rebellious in the sense of shutting people out. But when Angel Tree came along it touched me. It opened me up, humbled me, and has shaped me into a much more caring person."
Today, Annabel's big brown eyes are filled with hope — hope that very easily might not have been there without Angel Tree! She recently started a new job and plans to graduate from college soon.
Though graduations and events like these are moments that a parent in prison can't be there for ... through your support of Angel Tree, parents in prison CAN be close to their children at Christmas, and THAT makes all the difference to a young child like Annabel was, who only wants to know that Daddy hasn't forgotten them!
Already 547,000 Angel Tree kids are waiting. You can deliver gifts of love and the message of hope. And when you make a gift to Angel Tree, the matching grant will double the power of your generosity to reach twice as many children. Thank you!
Yours in His service,
Chuck Colson
P.S. You'll be pleased to know — Annabel's father is now following after God and will be released from prison soon! Pray for him, for Annabel, and for children like her whom you are blessing through Angel Tree. Thank you for your generosity. God bless!
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