Well, I'm not off to a great start. I meant to write this last week. I'm a newbie to this whole blog world. This is the post Tim really was hoping for two Sundays ago.
So, God had an idea that recently had a great impact on my family. It all started with cookies. Yes, cookies.
Our friends Randy and Candice Wagenleinter are in the process of adopting two siblings from Ethiopia. They are raising a significant amount of money and have a limited amount of time to do so, as with many adoption scenarios. Obviously this amount of money is pocket-change to God, that is...if he had pockets. Our family had a strong prompting to help them. We don't have extra disposable income to contribute, but we knew contributing was what God was asking us to do. So, praying and asking for a creative solution was what we did.
The week of New Year's Eve Tim, Leah, and I were discussing how we could help them. Tim happened to be browsing Etsy.com (we have begun the process of opening an Etsy store for Tim's business, ReVive...more on that another time). We also have been brainstorming ways to use Etsy to sell goods where a portion of the proceeds would go to adoption non-profits. He found an Esty store that sells cookies, so I said, "A bake sale", which led Leah to remember the cookies at Costco (which we had just regrettably walked past without purchasing two days earlier)and she said, "We could buy the cookies at Costco and sell them for $10/dozen." Leah remembered the exact cost of the cookies at Costco and figured out how much we should sell them for in order to donate a "sweet" difference to the Wagenleitner adoption fund. We then realized that New Year's Eve was approaching and people would be purchasing treats for their parties anyhow and would OF COURSE be excited to help out our friends. Soooo... after clearing it with the Wagenleitners we turned to social networking to get the word out to all of our friends. Candice also spread the word to her facebook friends and posted the cookie sale on her blog.
The orders started flowing within the first few hours. We were so excited getting everything prepped to take orders, pick up cookies, and deliver. I got to use my nerd-love of building spreadsheets to track everything and my crafty side to design tags to adorn the cookies. Leah helped with tracking orders, while she kept a running total of donations in her head (despite that it was auto-summing in the spreadsheet ;-)) We took orders for a few days leading up to New Year's Eve. It was getting a great response. But, of course it wasn't good enough. I kept hoping more and more people would order so we would have a really large amount to give to the Wagenleinters. I was starting to get discouraged about something that was NOT discouraging at all. I was losing sight of the fact that God gave us the idea; we were just to run with it in obedience, using our time, talents, and treasures to do so. I was making it about an amount of money. God of course gently reminded me that HE had an idea, I was limiting him, and I was making this about silly cookies. WOW!
God definitely had an idea, but it wasn’t about cookies. It was about calling his people to ACT in obedience, ACT as the church, and ultimately showing HIS splendor yet again. During the course of the cookie sale God used the cookie sale as one domino to initiate many of his people to use their time, talents, and treasures to contribute to the Wagenleitner’s adoption.
As Tim put it, “He multiplied the 5 loaves and 2 fish.”
Financial blessings were provided beyond what we could have imagined to happen in a span of less than a week. Yet what impacted me more was that he provided the opportunity for my family (and I’m sure all others involved) to walk in faith and obedience, and to witness his hand in everything as our sole provider.
Once I was able to step back and see what he had done, I was humbled by my family’s specific place in his plan in light of his sovereignty.
The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. –Proverbs 16:9
To be encouraged by one story of God’s sovereignty please visit Candice’s blog at: http://www.tomakehimknown.blogspot.com/
Hey! I am not sure how in the world I missed the fact that you have a blog now?! I love it! And we got mentioned in the 2nd post ever? Pretty special! :)
ReplyDeleteI think you're a great writer- and I think Tim and Leah have fantastic ideas (with God's help of course!)
We are so thankful for your family. The Lord has most definitley multiplied the loaves and fishes :)