So for those who don’t know, one of my teammates, Jenn, fell in love with one of the little boys at the orphanage we worked at in China. His name is Zi-Ping, he’s four years old and he has Down’s Syndrome.
That month we didn’t have internet and were unable to speak to anyone whilst we were there, but Jenn would relay to you that her Skype conversation with her sister immediately after leaving (i.e. Hong Kong airport) went like this:
Katie:Hi! It’s great to see you! How are you?
Jenn: Great! I have a favor to ask you [I know favour is spelt wrong but they’re American and I’m trying to relay this to you honestly :-p]
Katie: Ok, what is it?
Jenn: I need you to adopt this little boy with Down’s who would fit right into your family.
Katie: Ok.
And that is literally how fast it went. Immediately Jenn’s brother-in-law Josh got on Skype, Jenn relayed what she had been talking to Katie about and he agreed and said that they’d talk about it that night. The next day they started to fill out the paper work.
Now, to adopt internationally from China to the US costs around $35,000 (which is about £22,000) and so they knew they would have to go about raising that money. Where do you get $35,000? They came up with fundraising ideas and plans and as word got out Jenn was contacted by an organisation (who are choosing to remain anonymous) that said for every dollar raised on a particular day they would match fund it.
Yesterday was Zi-Day, Friday the 13th (unlucky for some?) of April, and so we had all been working towards this, getting the word out in churches, on Facebook, on blogs, etc. Josh had decided that his goal for the day was that after all was raised and matched they would be $5,000 better off toward bringing Zi home. That is, that $2,500 would be raised by the end of the day.
Jenn, however, felt God prompting to pray for bigger. Yesterday morning, after we had spent time in prayer together as a team, she continued in prayer alone. She felt God was saying that, as this year has been in many ways a year of abundance for us, we should be praying for more. So she said, “ok God I want to see $1,000 by lunchtime”. “Really” He said? “Is that really asking for abundance?”. She thought about it, slightly afraid to pray for more, but willing to ask for more from the one who is greater than any earthly father, “Ok, how about the $2,500 goal to be met by lunchtime?” “You’re still not praying for abundance”. Well, as she would tell you, to pray something big enough that if it doesn’t happen you’ll look and feel foolish is something that is difficult to do – it take real courage. But she knew that God was calling her to do it. Her prayer was this “God, would you bring in double Josh’s expected amount, a whole $5,000 before matching and would you bring it in by lunchtime. And would you be glorified in it all, because this is not something that we can achieve, it will only happen if you have your hand on it.” She made this public, letting us and Facebook know that the prayer was for $5,000.
Well. When Jenn and I got back from town mid-afternoon, it had just gone 9am in Philadelphia. And they had $3,000 donated. Wow! When it reached 10am they had over $4,000…
At lunchtime, they had received more than $8,000!!!
Quite rightly, the blog post for bringing Zi home at this point was the lyrics from the song “How great is our God”.
God had matched audacious faith with outrageous answers.
But the story doesn’t end there, check out the blog (fromatozi.wordpress.com) for the regular updates of yesterday. By the time we had gotten back from our ministry outing yesterday evening the time in Philadelphia was after 2pm and they had reached… wait for it… $10,000!!! At that point, since it would be doubled, they would have had four times the amount that Josh had hoped for.
But it doesn’t stop there. By the end of the day the total reached by lunchtime had been DOUBLED! At the close of the day the total raised was $16,345.41! When doubled, that's approximately $32,690.00! In one day they have raised almost enough to bring Zi home! In fact, with the money that had raised prior to yesterday they can bring him home!
HOW GREAT IS OUR GOD! OUR GOD IS GREATER, OUR GOD IS STRONGER, GOD YOU ARE HIGHER THAN ANY OTHER!
