Planning and more planning!!!

Well, this planning for huge fundraisers is so new to me, it’s pretty much intimidating!

And for those of you who don’t know me, I have lived in Africa for a total of 7 years. I have survived army ants (the kind that you literally have to move out of your house to let them pass through there are so many millions of them,) killer bees (the kind that looks like a really big cloud moving your way from miles away, and the only way you know they are bees is from the really loud buzzing sound. We learned early on to yell for everyone to ‘hit the deck’ and fall flat on our bellies wherever we were, and they just flew over us.) I have survived scorpions, tarantulas and all kinds of poisonous and killer snakes. My favorite one has no name in English, a loose translation is the ‘2 step snake’. Means if you get bit by one, you have the approximate time it takes to walk 2 steps before you fall down dead. I survived malaria 4 times, cerebral malaria once. There were riots and demonstrations, gun fire in the streets. We hid close to the walls away from the windows. Somehow God protected me from all that for all those years. 

My idea of a fundraiser, is a potluck, and then everyone has to pay for a plate or something!! Haha! And here we are going around ‘asking for money’ as my husband calls it with disdain. I keep telling myself it’s for a really good cause, and that we are getting the community involved in something really worthwhile. So I put off for a while, the whole going to businesses in town asking for donations for the auction. Last week I hit the pavement for the first time. It was pretty amazing, to be honest!! I loved watching people’s expressions, and seeing some who were just thrilled to be involved in any way they could, and others who really didn’t care. Those of you bothering to read this are probably in the thrilled to be involved category :-) I am the one running around with a ponytail and flip flops. Not too professional, I admit, but that is as good as it gets for me! So you can imagine how a fancy fundraiser would intimidate me!! Haha! 

I feel like I am getting to know the heart and soul of my town, and it is such a huge blessing!!! I LOVE living here! I remember coming back from Africa thinking this is the worst plan I have had yet! Living in Dawson Ditch as I so fondly used to call it, was not my favorite idea! But then, for some reason, I just felt like God was directing me here. Rolla Bible Baptist Church supported me faithfully all those years in Guinea, West Africa, and I thought this was as good a place as any to recover from a long-term illness. The longer I live here, the more I appreciate this town, with all its water shortages and lack of retail stores :-) It’s about the people!!! And truly, the people here are SO great!! I wouldn’t have this blessing of seeing the town rally behind us, if we didn’t do this huge, crazy fundraiser! I tell our group that I want for all of us in the group to be stretched by going to Haiti, turns out, the stretching part for me is coming in the form of a Fundraiser!!!