Lamentations 3:22-23
The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.
Guys. I’M FULLY FUNDED. God is SO AMAZING!! He truly wanted me on the race. Right here, right now. He didn’t want me to wait to raise enough money to launch on the August route. He wanted me to leave January. I can look and understand now why it had to be this way.
Had I gone in August, it wouldn’t have required much risk and faith on my end. I could have comfortably started fundraising here and there, selling prints of my photography, calling family and friends, doing fundraising dinners, selling t-shirts. All in a year, I would be fine. But nope. He wasn’t going to make it that smooth. Comfortable is something I want to feel less of. When I step out of my comfort zone, my faith requires stretching and my relationship with the Lord grows.
I signed up for the world race a month past the deadline (that’s a whole other story), and I could just feel the Lord telling me “now, not later”. And so I obeyed, sending out support letters, designing t-shirts & selling them to people, working at art fairs selling my photography & t-shirts. I only had 3 months to try and raise $10,000. I had no choice but to hand it all over to God because there was no way I was going to accomplish this on my own. And He, of course, was faithful and I made the deadline before leaving.
The overall amount I needed to raise for my trip is $17,700. I hadn’t really doubted or worried that I wasn’t going to raise the full amount to be completely honest. I think that this is because I felt such a strong urge that I was supposed to do this last minute. He called me to jump into it full-heartedly and so that’s what I did. No doubts in my mind that it wasn’t going to happen.
Last month while I was in Ghana, I had a strong feeling that I would be fully funded by the end of the month. When I was thinking the end of my month I was thinking the end of month 2 on the race, not the end of the month as in March. I had someone who had said they would donate a decent portion towards my mission trip, and tried reaching out to them and received no answer. This was around the time my donations were really slowing down and I began to grow a bit discouraged.
Month 3 on the race rolls around, and I am here now in Cambodia. I wake up to a text from my dad asking me how much I need to finish my fundraising in full. I respond with the remaining amount I needed and he says he has someone who wants to pay it in full. THE REST OF MY FUNDS. My dad had just met this person that day, mentioned that his daughter was on a mission trip and instantly the person wanted to help me! She has no idea who I am and yet with the power of God, she chooses to help build the kingdom. I was right in feeling that I would be fully funded by the end of the month and that it would be a large donation. The Lord shows up, every time. If you are reading this and are not fully funded yet, I want to encourage you to not grow discouraged. God will come through with the funds you need, you just need to have trust in the Lord that it WILL happen. He will put people in your life who may not even know you as He did in my situation, and they feel the Holy Spirit nudging them to help.
I want to say thank you to all of my incredible supporters. Thank you for getting me to where I am today, for allowing me to be sitting at a coffee shop in Cambodia writing this blog telling all of you that I am fully funded. Thank you for most importantly choosing to say YES to the Lord and helping build His kingdom. I would not be here if it wasn’t for all of you. Seriously, you are such a blessing. I had so many people tell me I was crazy thinking I could raise that much money so quickly, and He did it. He truly wanted me here now. Not later. If God calls you to go do something, trust Him and He will do the rest of the work. Thank you, Lord, for always being faithful in your words. Your works are so so good.
I want to also say a special thank you to my Grandma Faye. You have seriously gone above and beyond in helping me get this far in my fundraising. You have truly obeyed the Lord when He tells you to do so. When you heard that I had to raise the given amount for my trip, you didn’t flinch one bit. You just began to help me in any way possible. Telling all of your friends that I was selling t-shirts and having them buy them as Christmas presents, holding a Lent Supper for me and having my entire family volunteer to help. I didn’t even ask you all to do that, you just did it out of love and I seriously don’t know what I did to deserve you guys, really. You are truly a blessing from God. I hope that you all know that I cherish you so dearly. I guarantee you I wouldn’t be here in Asia currently if you hadn’t obeyed the Lord. I encourage you to continue to keep doing just that. I love you all so dang much.
Psalm 89:1
I will sing of the steadfast love of the Lord, forever;
with my mouth I will make known your faithfulness to all generations.
