I have been really bad about blogging on a regular basis and It is my goal to amend this.
As the days and weeks progress I am surprised over and over again by the help and overwhelming kindness that I have been blessed to experiance. It is never my expectation that anyone is going to help me, with the exception of my imediate family. I hate to ask for help and try to get as far as I can without even letting anyone know. God knows us better than we could ever know ourselves and that is why before he revealed the World Race to me he releived me of my ability to be self-sufficent, removed my mom’s ability to give it to me. The Lord set it up so I needed help he set it up so that I had to ask. The Lord has used this time to teach me lessons and here are the ones I have picked up on so far.
1. There is no such thing as a slam dunk
Going to the enormous church that I do, I made the horrible assumption that fundraising would be easy. The fatal flaw in my calculation is that I would automatically have the congregation as a resource. I didn’t and still don’t. I have been blessed by many supportive members of my church but that support has come through small group presentations and one on one conversations, not the mass appeal I had imagined. The amazing part though is I was imagining a shallow response from a lot of people, instead I recieved a deep and moving response from a few. People who encourage me and believe in me more than I do in myself, and that has been more than worth the effort and is worth more than any amount of money.
2.The open mouth gets fed
My friend told me this once and it just kinda stuck in my mind. I kept repeating it to myself as I pulled my red radio flyer with a cooler full of pies up the street, going door to door. When I came to the 3rd house from the bottom of the hill, the man who owns the 2nd house from the bottom and happened to be standing outside his garage came over and asked what I was doing. His family had lived at the bottom of the street for at least 10 years, his children went to school with my siblings and I knew a few things about them. I knew they liked to have parties, I knew he was a Verizon wireless customer, oh and that they are Muslim. So when he asked what I was doing I quickly and diplomatically answered “selling pies”. “What for he asked”, and for a moment I paused, I know it was wrong but a zillion things ran through my head, I didn’t want to offend him or get into some drawn out theological debate that I was fairly certian I would be ill prepared for, and other less savory thoughts inspired by the poor examples of Christian/Muslim relations we see in the media, that I will not perpetuate in print. Finally I decided, I’m honest and I’m not gonna start lying now, especially about Jesus so I explained my mission. When I had finished he said “I don’t want pie… but I will give you a donation”. In that moment I learned that is was idiotic for me to assume for a moment that I had any idea who or what the Lord was gonna use in his plans for me. I LOVE that the Lord used my neighbor, I LOVE that he challenged my politically correct sensibilities and that he has strengthened me enough to choose truth.
3. I’ll get by with a little help from my friends
A few weekends ago 2 girlfriends I use to work with and I had a yardsale. On face value this isn’t super astounding or miraculous, but the best things rarely are. See these girls have helped me grow in the Lord, they have walked step by step with me, we have disgused God’s glory while watching him work. These girls have continually encouraged me and though they probably don’t even know it have always come through when I was down or discouraged almost like it was a queue. The reason this is so amazing to me is because I feel like I can clearly see how God set this up for me before I was anywhere near ready to be a Christian he was lining things up so that when the time came and I needed them I had solid Christian friends. My friends helped me load a 14 foot U-Haul with heavy stuff (like really heavy), they found a house to have the sale, they made signs and brought their own stuff to sell. They worked all day, loading and unloading, selling and haggling, setting up and cleaning and then gave me every last penny. I would have never expected it and the crazy part is I didn’t ask, it was their idea. I expressed a need and they came up with a way to help fill it. I don’t believe in coincidence and am very thankful that in his infinite grace God gave me friends like these.
4. Expect the unexpected
Chik-fil-a seemed like an easy enough fundraiser, printed flyers hit all the local buisnesses to make sure their employees got some and thought that should do. Then on Wednesday I recieved a call letting me know only 10 flyers had come in. 10 out of 1000, not what I’d call a success. So on Thursday I headed down to the local JC to hand out flyers, now it seems like a no brainer to have done earlier but I didn’t want to get in trouble since in knew they weren’t gonna give me permission since I wasn’t a student (yes I know I’m dumb). My sister had a rare bout of pitty for me and stayed to mostly watch me pass out flyers. This however turned out to be part of a much larger plan. As I hustled and my sister sat watching me a young man was watching her. He had seen her “somebody loves you” tee shirt, the crusade our church host, and decided to come talk to her. Still chasing people with flyers I didn’t notice as she collected new friends from her spot guarding the flyer box. She explained my mission to them and by the time I paid attention to what was going on I had a new partner in flyer distribution (who was much better than me) and an invite to speak and the Campus crusade later that day. We had a nice bible study, and made some new friends, but more than that I was given the opportunity to tell them that evangelisim works, to share that on that very campus, people whose names I can’t remember and faces I will probably never see again dropped seeds of knowledge on my heart years before and that even though they may not see the harvest they are surely planting seeds.
5.The kindness of strangers
After the yardsale one of my friends told her friend about it and that it was to raise funds for my mission trip. My friends friend told her husband, and there were little ears listening. The next day when she came home from work she to find her 3 girls and husband working on posters and registration forms because they were planning a walk-a-thon to raise money for my trip. Three little girls I had never met decided that they wanted to help me or as my friend later told me “help the orphans” . They made 150% of their goal, talk about kid power. What seemed like their whole family turned out to participate, another friend of a friend sent fancy red velvet cupcakes to sell. The Lord put it in these people’s hearts to reach out and help a stranger, a stranger who didn’t even have to ask. This encourages me to share even more.
I’ve learned more but this has gotten entirely too long so I’m going to end it now, to be continued…
