Those who have known me for a while know that I don’t usually stress out about anything. My favorite life’s phrase is definitely “meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless… so why worry about it??” But let me tell you, these past couple of months have had some stressful scares! Thankfully, God has stepped in to save the day in at least 2 situations!
1) Raising $16,254 is already a daunting task. On top of it all, my health insurance company has been difficult to deal with. I’m a type 1 diabetic, which means that I have to take an injection of a synthetic hormone called insulin before I can eat any form of Carbs. Shipping insulin overseas can be tricky, because it has to be kept cool, but not cold. If it gets too cold or too hot, the proteins can decompose and it won’t work as well as it should. God was definitely keeping me and my family on our toes because my insurance company wouldn’t agree to pay for the insulin or for shipping it overseas. Without this coverage, we would have to pay around $3000 more in order to get my insulin to me on the field. My parents finally found a way to make it work, if only my dad’s work would approve of their plan. Of course, they ended up turning it down, saying that we can just ship it internationally on our own… Let’s just say, I was starting to freak out because that would bring my total in support raising to almost 20 grand… YIKES!
By an act of God, my dad randomly had a meeting with his work’s HR department and he told them abou tour difficulties. Next thing we knew, my Dad’s company changed their mind from not approving the shipment of my insulin to randomly approving it. So now it will only cost a fraction of what it would have otherwise!
2) Growing up, my parents were always adamant about not being in debt to anyone. My dad was always capable of paying off anything he owed, and I’ve always really respected that about him. Obviously, support raising goes against that entire ideology, but I’ve been realizing that it isn’t the ideology that is prohibiting me from wanting to support raise, it’s the pride that comes with the ideology. Now, support raising in general is known as the first stressful step in the World Race. I felt perfectly fine asking people to support me, as long as I didn’t have to do it to their face… or over the phone. Needless to say, talking on the phone to people is not my favorite past time, let alone asking for supporters over the phone. On top of all that, a couple of weeks ago, I had to face another uncomfortable situation: asking my college friends for money. Now my H2O Cincy people are super awesome and I love all of them to death, and I know that they are super loving and supportive in return, but let’s face it, asking a whole bunch of poor college students for financial support is not fun. I quickly realized that God wanted me to swallow my pride and let my college family know I needed them.
In the end, all of this extra stress is definitely paying off. This morning I was still kinda freaking out about it, so I decided to stop and pray and ask God for some encouragement. About an hour later, a good friend of mine from Cincy (shout out to the awesome, beautiful Davida!) texted me saying that she wanted to open an Etsy store and sell some of her craftiness for my World Race! How awesome is that?? More info on this should come later! It’s so awesome to know that God is using friends and random people alike to help me tackle this whole support raising thing =)
