Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock...I feel like the clock is ticking away at our time for raising money for our trip to Kenya. I guess because it is since we now only have five weeks left. So we have to get moving on our last fundraiser.
We have been working on figuring out the best way to give away two coach purses that were generously donated to us to help us raise some money for Kenya. A friend of ours has a friend who works for Coach, so that is how we came to get them.
We have decided to have a drawing for the purses since we have many friends who do not live close to us. So the way we will do it is that for every $20 you donate to our mission trip fund to Kenya, your name will be written on a raffle ticket. (This means if you want to increase your chances of winning, you can donate more than $20, so if you donate $60, then you will have your name put on 3 tickets for the drawing.) Then we will mail you a copy of your ticket and when we draw for the purse, if your name is one of two drawn, we will contact you and make arrangements to deliver the purse to you.
Jeremy took some photos of them today so you can see what you will get for your $20, if your name is drawn. As you can see, one of the purses is very colorful.
And here is the solid purse.
We decided to set a limit of the number of tickets we will sell to increase your chance of winning one of the purses. However, we do still need to raise $3,000 for my sister's trip and another $1600 for my trip, so we decided we will sell 165 tickets. That way if we sell all of the tickets we will raise $3,300 for our mission trip. This means I can finish funding my trip and still give my sister $1700.
Because of our trip being just five weeks away, we have decided to only have this fundraiser for a month, so we will end the fundraiser on July 31 when we draw the two names for the purses. (We leave for our trip on Aug. 2.) We will contact you by phone on July 31 if your name was drawn.
If you are interested in being entered in the drawing, please click on the link below to donate.
https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/5JKn4?type=endorsement
You can also be entered in the drawing by letting me know you are interested and if I live close by to you, I can swing by and pick up your donation. Or I will also have the tickets in my car, so if you see me at church or somewhere else you can give me the donation and I will give you a copy of the ticket.
Obviously your support in this fundraiser would be so helpful and just amazing! But if you can't support us in this way, as always please be in prayer for us about this fundraiser. Prayer is always the most important part of this as without prayer or God's support, none of this would happen or even matters. So please just keep praying!!
Our summer has gotten off to a very busy start, which is why I haven't had a chance to update our blog in awhile. We had a short vacation, cub scout camp, and several June birthdays we are getting ready for, including our little Reece Bear turning 5 this Saturday!! But the other day I looked at the calendar and realized there are only 6 weeks left until we leave for Africa!! Wow!!
First I wanted to say that we made it through Jadon's first soccer season!! Yay!! And Jadon had a great time playing and learned a little more about the game. The best part is that at the end of the season, we ended up raising a little more than $1,000 with Jeremy taking photographs for the Mansfield First Baptist Upward teams! We put all that money in our fund for Africa.
If you read my blog last time, you might remember how I had a lot of items left over from the garage sale we had in May that we were trying to sell. We have been slowly selling more of those things, so that is a big praise! So with that money, along with a few more personal donations we have received, I am happy to tell you the total amount we have raised so far just for my portion of the trip is $2452.56!! If you remember I am going on the mission trip with my sister, so she is also trying to raise the money for her trip. I don't know her exact total, but I think it is more than $1,000 raised so far.
The good news is I only have $1847 left to raise for my portion of the trip. The bad news is that I only have 6 weeks left to do it!! If I was only relying on myself, I might be concerned, but since I am relying on a God who can move mountains, I know it will work out in the way only He knows.
Coach Fundraiser
We have another fundraiser we are starting up this month, so please be praying for us about this. We have received a generous donation of two coach purses, so we decided we will have a raffle with a drawing where we give away these two purses.
We haven't finalized all of the details, but we will probably start selling raffle tickets for this next week. We only plan to sell 150 tickets to keep the chances of winning higher, and if we can sell all 150 tickets we can raise $3,000!! This would finish funding my trip and get my sister so much closer to her goal as well! Please be watching for more details. We would love your support and you could even get a coach purse out of it! You can't beat that for $20!!
The other thing I am trying to get done this week is getting the shots I need to travel to Africa. I need to get immunized for Hepatitis A & B, yellow fever, and Malaria and to get it all done by the first of July. It's going to be busy the next few weeks finalizing all of these details, but the closer we get to this, the more I really feel God's hand in all of this.
Collecting Donations
I also wanted to share that we had a planning meeting for the VBS part of our trip to Kenya and found out we will be trying to collect some items as we get closer to leaving, so I will keep you updated on how you could help with this. I know one thing we will need donations of is deflated soccer and kick balls. We will take them over there in our luggage and inflate them once we get there for the kids to play with while we are there. Then once the VBS is over the kids get to keep the balls.
We have another planning meeting July 9 where we will find out more on what other stuff we may want to bring, so I will let you know more on how you can help once we get that information.
I wanted to end this post with just a little simple reminder of why I am doing this. Our pastor at church has been talking about being genuine and how important it is as Christians. He also has reminded us what it says in Matthew 6:1 about being hypocrites and doing good works "to be seen by them," meaning doing things just to boast about what a great person you are.
This really made me realize I need to be careful with this blog and make sure I watch how things come out so that anyone reading this realizes that my trip and even this blog has nothing to do with bringing glory to myself or saying,"hey look how awesome I am for doing this Mission Trip!" It is only to bring God all the glory. And I realize He doesn't need my help to do this, but I am honored he would choose to use me for this. Because I am not anyone who has it all together or at all figured out. I am just the opposite, a real person with real problems who just happens to have Jesus guiding me along the way. And I love children so I feel this is how I can help spread his message of hope.
It is not about me, but about Him. By the end of the trip, I really feel I will probably say I gained more than I gave. Or as John says in John 3:30 "He (God) must become greater; I must become less."
