Sunday Inspirations April 11, 2010

We held a big fundraiser to help the teenage girls in our church make enough money to hold a great girl's camp coming later this summer. I'm still not exactly certain how it all happened, but I ended up being left in charge. Something I'm not a fan of being...in charge. When one is left "in charge" it means the success or failure of the project seems to lay entirely on said person's shoulders. Ugh.

I don't exactly handle stress well, and as we neared the day I kinda sorta started to get overwhelmed. Was my idea of a boutique, yard sale, and bake sale a bad idea? Could we expect to make much of anything let alone the full amount needed to make girl's camp a success? Had I talked everyone out of a better idea simply because the original idea felt like too much??? In other words, had I doomed us to making a whopping five dollars?

I should have known better. Actually, I should have had more faith. We were blessed beyond belief in the items given to us by generous friends and church members. Some of the last minute donations brought in some of our biggest numbers.

I took a few pictures of the adventure if you'd like to take a look. Here's a few ladies (and a thirsty gentleman) manning the bake sale table. We sure had some awesome treats that day. At least, from what I hear, lol. No treats for me :)
Here's our "media" section. We had so many movies and books and even a computer and small television donated. In the background there was even a big bunch of clothes for people to go through.

There were loads of baby items almost all of which went quickly. In the background was our boutique section. We had scrap booking items and jewelry and little girl dress up items. It was too cute :)

One of the last minute donations were a bunch of items donated by a local funeral home. All of these chairs sold! They were in great condition. I wish someone had been able to snag the benches in the far left - they were gorgeous and incredibly comfortable. But the couple who "maybe" wanted them didn't make it back in time :(

Here's our cute president over the girls, her hubby, and one of the young women. They were manning the raffle table. I'll be talking more about our raffle tomorrow, as we still want to give others the chance to win a fabulous portrait sitting.

The fundraiser turned out better than we'd hoped. Though we didn't get all we would have liked, the generosity of those around us blessed us more than we'd hoped. As I mentioned earlier, we should not have worried for one simple reason: the Lord knew our purposes behind holding this fundraiser, and He would help to provide us with what we needed. How wonderful is He!

There comes a point in many difficult things (even if they're difficult for good reasons) where we have to stand back and say, "Lord, I've done all I could, now I leave it in your hands." And then we trust. Putting this fundraiser wasn't easy, and at times I wanted to rebel. But I did everything I could, then stood back and trusted the Lord would help pick up where I left off. He did. Not only did He bless us with everything we needed to sell, but He gave us the people who were willing to buy. For this I am very grateful.

Still, I'm so glad it's over, and maybe now I can chill :)