Wonder of Wonder, Miracle of Miracles! (A Little Ditty From Fiddler on the Roof)

Yesterday was the BBQ Luncheon Fundraiser sponsored by my home church (Rooftop Community Church---see the link to the right of this page for more info.)! Shortly before the fundraiser, one of the people from NMSI asked me to calculate what percentage of monthly support I had raised so far. When I tallied things up, I was disappointed to find that I had only raised 8% of the support I needed after meeting with bunches of people over the last several weeks. As I thought about it, though, I realized that many families had committed to support me and were enthusiastic about being involved in my ministry, but simply hadn't filled out the papers or signed up on the Internet to officially begin supporting me. (If this is you, please take this opportunity to do so by visiting www.nmsi.org/donate ).

I briefly relayed this information to the people at the fundraiser lunch at the end of my presentation and was AMAZED at their response! Later that afternoon I found that God had raised up 22% of my monthly support at that luncheon, so that I now have 30% of my monthly support!!! WOW! Thirty is so much bigger than eight! I'm almost 1/3 of my way to my goal!!!

To appreciate the incredibleness of this, you must also know that we had originally reserved a room for 100 people and 17 people ended up coming to this luncheon. I say that not to make you feel bad if you didn't go, but to remind you of the story of Gideon I posted about earlier. God took a huge army and narrowed it down to merely 300 men before Gideon led them in battle in order to show beyond all doubt that God was in charge and it was by His power that Gideon and his men won the battle. God did the same thing at my luncheon! God did a mighty work through those 17 people! And did it in such a way that it was obvious that it was ALL HIM!!

My mom, dad, and Grandma came! Grandma turned 91 this past July and is having a harder time getting a round, but she still made it to the BBQ! The brochures that she has in her hand were skillfully made by NMSI's Publications Department---things I'll get to help create when I move back to Florida to work in the office.

Look at that tasty food! The pictures on the back of the table are of my Little-K small group from college, me giving a piggy back ride to some kids in Mexico, and some kids from Honduras smiling back at the camera. Though I'm absolutely certain that God is calling me to stay and work in Florida at the NMSI office for a while, I'm not entirely sure what the next step will be---what country or ministry God is calling me to abroad. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I just LOVE KIDS and would be happy in a variety of places! Luckily, there are kids in every country!

After giving the Power Point Ministry Presentation that I created in the COAT program this summer, we served pieces of cake to people while they filled out pledge cards. We put all of the pledge cards in a bowl and I drew Polly's name as the winner of the Oakley sunglasses! I thought I had a picture of all the people who came, but apparently it's not on my camera, so e-mail me a copy if you have one! All in all, it was a very encouraging day!!!