By Catherine Claire|Published Date: June 03, 2009

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Step into Judy and Larry Mills’ kitchen on a Friday night and you’ll find a frenzy of activity. The kids are coming over for a cookout, and platters of patties, bunches of brownies, and liters of lemonade line the countertop. Standing in the kitchen you can’t help but notice that the refrigerator is plastered with pictures from top to bottom of Judy’s kids--more than 60 of them. Only two of those kids are her own; the scores of others are the children of her heart--Angel Tree® children whom she and Larry, and her church, Bethany First Church of the Nazarene in Oklahoma City, have covenanted with to be a part of their lives through college.

“I love these children,” explains Judy, who recently took an early retirement from her job as an insurance agent to minister to Angel Tree children year-round. “Sometimes they come over to my house and they see all the pictures I have on my refrigerator, and they see their pictures up there, right along with my kids and grandkids and they’re just stunned! They can’t believe it.”

But what is even more stunning is the level of commitment Judy, Larry, and others from their church have shown these kids. What began with Angel Tree Christmas parties has grown to include cookies on birthdays, camps during the summer, back-to-school shopping in the fall, and everyday love like teaching a teenager how to fill out a job application or supplying the needs of a family whose apartment caught on fire.

While the montage of smiling faces that cover Judy’s refrigerator might not make the Metropolitan Museum of Art, this motley crew composes a mosaic of mercy that is nothing short of a masterpiece. There’s no better way to see the ongoing impact of Angel Tree than to take a close-up look at some of these faces. Every photograph has a story.