Well, I have finally had time to wind down after the most recent semester and the END OF MY UNDERGRADUATE CAREER. Wow. I knew this year would go by quickly, but dang, it flew. It has been a while since I’ve provided an update. 

 

Things that have happened since March 23rd, 2018 (the last time I posted):

 

1. I had a VERY successful fundraising dinner at my home church over my spring break. So many people had their hands in loving me and showing me support. It was overwhelming (in a good way). We raised $4,000 towards my trip. That put me over $10,000. Keep in mind, the first deadline I had was $5,000 on May 15th, so I was well over schedule. Praise the Lord!

 

2. My small group had a bake sale to help me raise funds in April! The original goal was to raise $300, and the Lord made it over $1,000! We had so much fun baking together. My sweet friend Hannah baked for at least a day straight, if not more. I think she’s recovered by now…

 

3. People I love dearly (and people I don’t even know!!!) have continued to be give and give and give!

 

 

4. Oh, and I graduated college!!!! I received my Bachelors of Arts in Elementary Education on May 5th. 🙂 

 

I am currently sitting at almost $12,000. With the bake sale money, I will be at around $13,000. Just $5,000(ish) away from my goal of $18,100! I realize this is still a lot of money, but if you’ve seen what I’ve seen, I know this is nothing for my God. 

 

At the beginning of this process, I was pretty calm. My thought was that if God wanted me to go on the trip, he would provide. Easy peasy, right? Well, that’s a lot easier to say than to live out. There have been some intense moments of panic throughout this fundraising process. All of these moments of doubt and fear came from me wanting to take control of the situation. When I thought I could do it on my own, I would panic. When I sat back and let God do the work, I was abundantly blessed and calm. This isn’t my doing, it is His.

 

The way I’ve been describing my personal fundraising journey to everyone is with one word: grace. I don’t deserve all of these people to love and support me the way they do, but they do it anyways. I am a mess! This past semester, I was trying to navigate student teaching (which is basically a full-time job for ZERO dollars) while trying to fundraise. As you can imagine, it has a been a bit of a nightmare! I haven’t had time to keep up on thank-you notes like I’ve wanted, I haven’t gotten letters out to every person I wanted to, and I haven’t been as organized as I like to be. This hasn’t stopped God working in my life through His people. (PS: If you haven’t gotten a thank-you note yet, you will soon!!!!)

 

The only thing I have contributed to my fundraising process is the need for funds. It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes by Jonathan Edwards:

“You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.”

HOW. HUMBLING. I have cried a lot in the past few months, as you can imagine. God is SO GOOD, ya’ll. 

 

Mind you, this post isn’t meant to brag. Even if I didn’t have all of the funds I do now, God would still be good. He is STILL GOOD. Would it be as easy to say that if I was struggling to meet my deadlines? Absolutely not. But it doesn’t change the truth.

 

Trusting God when things get hard is where our faith strengthens. That is why I am going on this insane journey around the world. I want God to wreck my life in ways I didn’t even know were possible, just to make me more like Him.

 

Sola gratia (by grace alone)