Do you ever think that you can't or don't know how to make a difference?  I want you to meet Clayton Lillard.  He's 16 and for the past five years he has made a difference in the lives of over 700 kids.
His motto is simple: “If you have the ability to do something for someone else, do it.” The young Texan from San Antonio  rode his way to fame on a bicycle . . . well, more like 700 bicycles.

In 1998 at age 10, Clayton spotted a couple of broken bicycles someone had put out for trash. It would be really great to fix up those bikes and give them to kids who don't have one, he thought. He took them home, gave them new tires and a fresh coat of paint.

Clayton then persuaded a local radio station to announce that he was looking for 25 used bicycles. Other stations and a local newspaper picked up the story, and Clayton and his mom, Vicki, were soon staring at more than 100 bikes in their backyard. Using pizza and soda as bait, Clayton attracted a group of neighborhood kids--now known as “Clayton’s Backyard Crew” with their own Website--to help clean the bikes, replace the tires, and make minor repairs. Cash donations went for new parts, bike helmets, and locks.

Clayton knew someone who was in prison, so he decided to donate the bikes as Christmas gifts to prisoners’ children through Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree® program. “The kids think the bikes are from their incarcerated parent,” says Clayton. “That's OK with me. Just seeing the excitement on their faces as they realize, ‘My Daddy loves me!’ is the best reward.”

On December 23, 1998 , Clayton’s eleventh birthday, he made his first delivery: to a family with eight children living in poverty. As the children joyfully pedaled down the street, Clayton could hear them shouting to their friends. “Their mother was in tears, so grateful that all of them got a present,” he says. He knew there would be no turning back.

“I felt the true meaning of Christmas that year,” he adds. “And I understood how it was better to give than to receive. Kids were asking for socks or their own pillow. A bicycle--something I had always taken for granted-- was a tremendous luxury to them.”

Seven hundred bicycles later and counting, Clayton now relies mostly on Angel Tree volunteers to make the deliveries of the brightly colored bikes, each carefully chosen for the appropriate child.

“This was God's idea,” says Clayton. “He just allowed me to be the instrument that  He used to bring His love to the children.”

I believe that God has set us up in The Zone Student Ministry to be His instrument for change in this world to bring His love to others.  Let's make a difference for others.

HERE ARE THINGS YOU CAN DO IN THE UPCOMING MONTHS TO HELP MAKE A DIFFERENCE: