I am fairly certain that one of the major contributing factors in my childhood decision to discontinue my involvement with the Girl Scouts was the trepidation of selling cookies. Standing outside of a local grocery market in bitter cold winter weather, sporting my uniform sash over four layers of clothing and coat, and working up the nerve to shout, “Getcher Girl Scout Cookies!”, much less make eye contact with approaching crowds was not my ideal way to spend a Saturday morning. I hated the feeling of my stomach dropping every time I struggled to send my voice outside of my throat to solicit. Of course, the hurried businessman carrying a lengthy shopping list and equal amount of dread in having to trail off a “No, no thanks…” to an 8-year-old girl in pigtails, standing beside a tower of assorted boxes of cookies, was just as painful to watch.
It seemed like a win-win scenario to me: I withdraw my affiliation with the Girl Scout Troop 333, I am released from the haunting demand to campaign for cookies. …Plus, I’d get to go inside of this grocery store and get some hot chocolate and have my Saturdays back. Sounds like a good deal to me.
Twenty-three years later, I’m still thin-mint-free. But, I do find myself in a similar situation to those cookie sale days. No- no patch-covered Brownie sash or light-up tennis shoes, but I am recognizing that familiar sick feeling that settles into my stomach when I have to ask others to invest.
Six weeks ago, I announced my decision to follow GOD’s call to serve across the world, living and learning and loving through 11 different countries in 11 months. The opportunity itself will certainly force me out of my comfort zone- to live in community with people I have never before met, to carry a year’s worth of supplies and comforts in what can fit into one backpack, to commit a month of my time- 11 times- to a country or city or village to which I have never before visited, …and to raise funds for it all. Um what? I thought I was done with solicitation. I quit the Girl Scouts, for heaven’s sake.
But this isn’t The Girl Scouts. This is GOD’s call. And I can’t quit GOD’s call.
Still, GOD’s call has me back in a position of discomfort, just like those days standing outside the grocery store entrance with my order form, stack of cookie boxes, and desperate eyes.
I feel like I am all the time thinking about fundraising. In fact, I know it. It wakes me up in the morning. I reflect on it for the duration of my morning exercise. I consider it when I am driving. It’s at the back of my mind when I have conversations with family or friends. I am reminded of it when I am pumping gas or grocery shopping or paying bills. I cloud my time reading or watching television with thoughts of it. I think. I worry. I doubt. I wonder. I fear. I dread.
But why am I taking on all of this as if I am alone?
If I believe that GOD has guided me in this direction, I need to really believe in HiS work. And I do. I believe. I absolutely believe. So, until my path is altered, I will fully trust that the LORD is going to be faithful in providing- providing resources, support, encouragement, and community.
GOD is with me in this and through this, as are so many other people. It’s a call that was not extended only to me. It has required the response of family, friends, and neighbors. People who believe in GOD, people who believe in love and compassion.
At this moment, I have had 43 individuals or families financially contribute. They have brought me to the mark of being 50% funded! They represent diverse sets of values and faiths, a spectrum of seasons in my life, various degrees of relationship.
They are people who have known me my entire life, they are people who have met me once. They are individuals who have supervised me, they are individuals who I have supervised. They are my former students. They are parents of my former students. They are parents of my friends. They are friends. They are college buddies and roommates. They are fellow graduate school cohort members. They are soul friends from my church, my small group. They are people I have met while traveling, people I have met through various short-term jobs.
And there has been a wide range of people who have reached out to me to offer encouragement, to cover me in positivity and well-wishes and prayer, to learn more about The World Race. They have shared this call to serve with others and further grown my support circle. They have provided recommendation and advice. They have reminded me of the work of GOD’s hands; they have reminded me I am not alone in this.
I am absolutely not alone in this.
I certainly didn’t consider how GOD’s call to me to serve would extend beyond me and into the lives of so many others far before I even left the country. Certainly, this has been the sweetest and most unsuspected layer to The World Race.
Raising support and sharing my call to serve has shifted my perception of fundraising. I see that it is a blessing, not a burden [though I still do need to re-remind myself of this often, to be honest]. The feeling I experience in my heart when someone contributes to my fundraising is unlike anything else. Each time, it is shocking and humbling and beautiful. Over and over again, I have been notified of a gift – and I am stunned. It is such a privilege to recognize that each person who invests- financially, prayerfully, with well-wishes- is taking on a new role.
That person has become a stakeholder in GOD’s call to serve and love one another.
And with support surrounding me from every direction- east to west, north to south, earth to heaven- I am realizing more and more that raising support is not a burden. It’s a rare, beautiful blessing.
As my launch date with The World Race approaches -five weeks away [AHHHH!]– I consider celebrating all that I have learned and continue to learn about raising support with a snack or a treat…
Perhaps a box of Girl Scout Thin Mints.
