Skip to main content

fundraising stinks. friends are awesome.

I hate fundraising for my own adoption, I really do. I just want to be able to write a check and bring these kids home. A little part of me feels like I'm begging people for money. A little part feels like it's my responsibility and maybe I shouldn't ask my friends and family for help. I have a million doubts about fundraising, but at the end of the day, I think of kids stuck in institutions, and I press on. The kids need me more than I need my pride. 

I know deep down that it's okay for people to come together to bring these boys home. I know that it allows the story to ripple out and touch more people, but I still don't necessarily like the exercise of repeatedly humbling myself and asking for help.

For the last three months I've had a list of fundraisers rolling around in my head, and I've been working on nailing down dates for them all, and coming up with an overall plan to get us funded. It has been a daunting, overwhelming task. Every time I see or say $32,000, I get a little scared.  

So one day I'm at church and 2 friends pull me aside. They've been talking, and they have an idea. They came up with a fundraiser idea, ran it by me, and then here's the good part - they took over the planning. They told me they wanted the load off me, I just needed to show up. 

They planned a ladies' paint party. We had it last weekend. Now, I did help before the event (just FYI so you don't think I'm a slacker) ;-) It was SO FUN. The prep work was fun, because instead of doing it largely alone, I was hanging out with friends. The ladies took care of the details like registration, location, etc, and basically just bossed me around. Which was a HUGE weight off. The physical load isn't the hard part of adopting and fundraising - it's the mental load of finishing the dossier, planning the fundraisers, raising the kiddos already home, and preparing for 2 more. I feel like my head is about to explode with details half of the time. And somehow my friends knew just what to do.

These ladies - they know how to be the hands and feet of Jesus. Sometimes it's not asking "how can I help?", but it's enthusiastically saying "this is what I'm doing to help you." 

The actual painting party was a blast. I'm not crafty so I don't really get the appeal of those events, but now I do. It wasn't the painting, it was the tables full of ladies laughing, talking, and helping each other paint. 

At the end of the day, we counted the money... I needed just under $1100 this week for USCIS fees. We raised $1100. Isn't God cool?

I felt so uplifted after this. It wasn't just the money; it was the fellowship, the love, the feeling of the burden shifted as it was carried by many and not just me. It was really profound.

My takeaway is this: How can I help carry the burden for someone else without waiting for them to ask?

I am so thankful for my friends, for all of the amazing ladies who showed up, and for God's perfect provision and timing. 

Fundraising stinks. Friends are awesome.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Don't you have enough kids already?

Why Adoption? Why on earth are they adopting? Don’t they have enough kids? I’m sure these are the top questions on most people’s minds right now.  So I’m going to go ahead and put them out there and answer them. YES, we have enough kids!  We have 5 beautiful, vibrant, wonderful kids.  Two are mine from a previous marriage but 100% loved by my husband as his own.  One joined our family through a temporary guardianship and we later had the joy of adopting him.  Two are ours together.  The 7 of us are close.  As tight knit as any biological family, and I would venture to say more tight knit than many.  We are strong.  We've weathered challenges.  We've seen God’s glory.  We've cried, praised, worshiped, and conquered together.  We've learned that blood and genetics do not define family – love does.  YES, we have enough kids!  Our house is full, and our ban...
2 comments
Read more

Ways to support our adoption (LOTS of them are FREE)

Ways to support our adoption: FREE ways to help: Give us your stinky old shoes! - We are collecting shoes to be reused in developing nations through an entrepreneurship program. Our goal is 10,000 pairs, so it is a God-sized goal and we need your help! This program has BIG potential to pay it forward: our adoption grant receives 40 cents per pound for the shoes, an entrepreneur is set up to sell them and earn a living wage, and low cost shoes are available to people in need.  Even better: talk to your work or church and set up a box! If you'll watch it and let us know when it's full, we'll come collect them! We have a HUGE goal to meet, and we need your network too! Help us check the current drop offs and bring us shoes when they overflow. Since we do not live in town, this is an especially big help! Current drop offs are: Lumbermart and Stage in Guymon, the Methodist Student Center and Church of Christ Student Center in Goodwell, Mills in Hooker, and the Post Offi...
1 comment
Read more

Blessed. (an update)

Wanted to take a minute and update you on how the adoption is going and what are prayer needs are. First of all, we are SO BLESSED by the outpouring of love that we have received.  I honestly expected at least a little bit of negativity, simply because we are doing something so out of the ordinary.  Something this big and crazy tends to welcome criticism. I have also been so HUMBLED by the outpouring of help.  I hate asking for help, I really do.  I knew from the beginning that by asking us to do this, God was asking us to put ourselves out there and ask for help.  We are in the early stages and haven't needed a ton of help yet, but I'm already BLOWN AWAY by the love that has been showered on us.  Our cinnamon roll fundraiser was the perfect example.  We set up to sell at a local consignment sale.  We had no idea what to expect, so we baked a bunch.  We had people buy like crazy and got a few cash donations.  We had friends spreading...
1 comment
Read more