I heart Elyssa Litchfield

My youngest sister Elyssa surprised me by coming out to visit a few weeks ago.  She gave me some awesome suggestions about how to raise support, all of which sounded really foreign and confusing to me.  In addition to all of the many other awesome things that she does, she is also a member of a great organization called Events for Change.  Events for Change is a group that puts together fundraising events to raise money for worthy causes.  (She LOVES to organize).  

Anyway, she offered to talk to her organization about having their next event be to raise support for my missions trip!  She wrote a corporate support letter for me and I guess is trying to get corporate funding?  I don’t really understand all of it, but thankfully she does!  

She wants to call the event “Stop the Traffic: Because you can’t put a price on a human life”.  I think it is awesome.  She wants to decorate the whole event with traffic themed things like street signs and street lights.  

I know this sounds cheesy, but I remember like it was yesterday the day that Elyssa was born.  I remember making her all these strange little concoctions in the kitchen when I decided that I wanted to be a “chef” someday.  I remember making “soft land” with my creative sister, Erin (basically taking all of the pillows and blankets from the whole house, putting them all together in one room and playing on them!).  I remember putting yellow food coloring in her ‘potty’ so that our mom would think that she was doing an awesome job at potty training!  

And now it seems that little Elyssa is all grown up!  She has graduated from college and works at a big deal software company.  She interned for them for 3 years of her college experience, and they hired her full time the second she graduated.  They have sent her all over the world (as a college intern!) to represent their software.  She is all grown up now- she is a woman.  It seems that there is nothing left that I can teach her because she is now so much more than my little sister.

Elyssa was super thoughtful even as a young child.  One time, I was playing hooky from school in 8th grade (because my boyfriend was suspended and I wanted to be able to talk to him on the phone) and Elyssa was legitimately home sick.  She felt badly because she thought that I was sick, so she made me a bowl of Campbells chicken noodle soup.  She was in third grade.  

So that being said, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised about her organizing this event for me, but the most difficult lesson that I am learning from this experience is to just accept her love.  But it is hard!  She is going so far out of her way!  She is spending a lot of time (and the time of her organization and my other sister, Erin) to plan and execute this event.  She is fronting her own money to buy decorations and rent the hall.  As of now, I just get uncomfortable even talking to her about it because I feel so unworthy of this extreme a display of love.  What do I have to offer her?  How could I possibly pay her back for everything that she is doing for me?  I am pretty overwhelmed with this whole thing at the moment- and I am sure that God is trying to take me to a new level of understanding of love and faith, but this journey seems to be more difficult than when He is trying to teach me about something negative!  

I stand in awe of our God and the blessings that He has seen fit to bestow upon me.  This motivates me all the more to get over to India, Thailand and Cambodia- and back here to the streets of the US.  So much love is being poured into me right now- and there is no way that I can contain it all in my body- I must get to these women and children and pour this overflow into them!  Elyssa is equipping me so well for this trip- even more importantly than her help in raising support is just knowing that she believes in me-and what I am doing.  

Thank you, Little Star.  I love you.

Love, 

“Big Star”