My kids and I, along with two friends, were in the movie theater watching "What Would Jesus Buy." We had joined the mission in December 2005, when you came to Sabathani in Minneapolis, and we joined the choir at the holy of holies, Mall of America.

Anyway, midway through the movie, my 8-year old son leaned over to me and whispered, "Mom, you don't have to buy ME anything for Christmas. I don't need more stuff." My 9-year old daughter and her friend were actually in the film (there's a few-second shot of them holding up my debit and library cards, pretending they are credit cards). After the credits rolled, they told the audience around us that they were in the movie, and we all had a great discussion about your message.

In some ways, your message is as simple as the lesson learned by the Grinch in "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," when he learns that "Maybe Christmas doesn't come in a box from a store. Maybe Christmas, he thought, means a little bit more." I'm paraphrasing here, but let no one say your message is too hard or "not right" for children to hear. They hear you, and they move forward with that message in their minds.

As the kids and I ate our supper, we talked about how seeing the movie brought back that day two years earlier, when we had seen the Church. We talked about your mission and about the details of the day. We talked about why it was important to think and talk about what Wordsworth calls the "getting and spending [in which] we lay waste our hours" (another bad paraphrase).

I wanted to share my story with you, mostly because of your exhaustion in the movie's scene in Bentonville AR. Do not wonder if you are being heard--you are!

So, thanks. And change-a-llujah. -Johanna