When I came to the Philippines in April it was a whirlwind. There was an urgent need for people willing to walk into trafficking hot spots and recruit women for Wipe Every Tear. Time was of the essence. This left little time to fund raise. My hope was that my blog would generate some awareness and support. In the beginning it was difficult to keep up with the blog. On the back of busses and in roadside cantinas I was blogging on my cell phone. Looking back at my posts, I can see that typing with thumbs dramatically impacted my already sub par gramatical skills. Even so, the message was clear; 33 precious women leaving the streets and bars to enter our care and enroll in school. Amazing and undeniably worth it, but this has left me in the pickle I’ve been in for the last week regarding fund raising. For my living and rescuing expenses, I needed to meet a deadline on the 16th to raise half of what I needed to be here until Christmas. I really felt that God was telling me to continue my work here and that He would provide.
I sent out the alarms to my friends, family and acquaintances asking for help. To my surprise, many people responded with encouragement and the fire in my heart was fueled all the more. This made it even more easy to continue to serve my sisters here with out feeling massively guilty that I might have to leave. When I woke this morning I rolled over and checked my support account on my phone. It was updated and I saw all of those who had sent online donations. The gifts were better than Christmas morning. I wanted to scream and laugh. The total was not what I needed to meet my first deadline, but it felt like that mountain had already been moved.
I went outside to do some happy dancing as my fellow team mates were still asleep in our room. My roommate and friend from back home gave me a call as I was jumping around the backyard. I was full of stories and excitement to tell her. As I shared she was opening three months worth of my mail that had been piling up. A funny squeaking noise came from her as I was going on and on about this and that. I paused and she said nevermind keep telling me what you are saying. After I was finished talking she told me this. “You’ve received several refund checks from different places; you also have a last pay check from work in this pile here” (we thought I had already received my last pay check). She pulled out the calculator and added up the total. It was the EXACT amount I needed to top off my first fundraising goal.
This overwhelmed me at the thought of each person that has given to me. That the amount and timing of what they gave was exactly what was needed. I am eager to see how God povides the last half of the funding I need to continue this journey of love and restoration.
