Waddy—Susan Bryant is all about buckets. She collects them. She gives them away. As president of Kentucky’s Women’s Missionary Union, she educates churches about them all over the state.

And once, four years ago, she even bought a bucket to her family for Christmas. “It was very eye-opening for them,” Bryant said of the experience.

But of course, the buckets she collects are special. They’re called “BGR Hospice Kits” and are full of items that ease pain for sick and dying people.

Bryant, a member of Graefenburg Baptist Church in Waddy, Ky., said she first discovered the kits in December 2013 during a mission trip to South Africa. Southern Baptists in the United States had donated thousands of them to Baptist Global Response, a community development and disaster relief organization. BGR then shipped them to various countries across Sub-Saharan Africa.

In South Africa, Bryant helped carry two of these kits—all packed neatly into white, five-gallon buckets—to suffering people. She said one went to a woman in her early 30s, and one went to an 11-year-old. He was the same age as one of her granddaughters, and AIDS had racked his body.

“When we went there, he was asleep,” she remembered. “He was very sick. He had a lung infection at the time and never opened his eyes. We don’t know if he even knew that we were there.”

Bryant watched as the boy’s grandmother carefully lifted items out of the bucket—each one designed to offer relief to both the patient and the caregiver. It contained balm for the boy’s cracked lips, socks to warm his feet, latex gloves for his grandmother’s hands, and much more.

Bryant has never forgotten that sight.

“It was heartbreaking to go into a home where (a boy’s) parents had already died of AIDS,” she said. “His grandmother was his caregiver because other family members had died of AIDS. … He had nothing, and through no fault of his own, he had AIDS.”

When Bryant flew home, she felt changed. She wanted to collect more hospice kits and ease the lives of more hurting people.

And, she felt her family’s Christmas celebration should reflect this burden Jesus had placed on her heart.

“I came home with a totally different mindset about Christmas and giving,” she said. And then, she added, “My 11-year-old granddaughter, she had an iPhone, an iPad, an iPod—she had everything except AIDS. And … the 11-year-old boy, he had nothing but AIDS.”

So, when Bryant drove from store to store to pick up presents for her family, she said she added a few extra purchases to her receipts—like lip balm, socks, and latex gloves. She bought the 20 items that fit into each hospice kit bucket, wrapped them individually in bright, Christmas paper and placed them under her tree.

As her family unwrapped each “gift,” Susan told the story of the 11-year-old bed-ridden boy.

The family caught Bryant’s enthusiasm. And, when her birthday rolled around the next August, they brought her a pair of buckets to pack together.

In the years since that unusual Christmas, Bryant’s family has continued to support her bucket advocacy. Bryant speaks in churches and WMU meetings about the impact hospice kits make on the sick and vulnerable, and her daughter helps find items people need to finish out their bucket-packing.

And, they do all of this—not because the kits themselves are important—but because they show God’s compassion.

“It’s not just the buckets,” she explained. “It’s not just what the buckets contain, but it’s the message of hope that’s so important.”

Bryant says she hasn’t given any more lip balm and latex gloves for Christmas, but she still works hard to get the word out about hospice kits. The need for them is great because AIDS still plagues Sub-Saharan Africa on a massive scale. More kids like that 11-year-old are dying, and Southern Baptists can do something to offer a touch of God’s love in those heart-breaking moments.

Bryant hopes they will.

Those interested in learning more about how to pack and send BGR Hospice Kits can visit www.gobgr.org/buckets. The site also includes a shopping list of items—which generous donors can always use for their Christmas lists. (WR)