Mission IS Possible
Designed by Jonathan Ogden
As part of his message, our pastor shared that with the Lord, all things are possible. Of course, we need to do what we can, yet trust the Lord to deliver what we cannot do on our own. He then had us write our impossible situation on an index card. Individually, we wrote our cards and laid them at the altar, giving our situations to the Lord.
I didn’t know it at the time, but on her card, my daughter Lauren’s impossible situation was that she had to raise $1300 in the 10 days remaining before her trip to Uganda (she needed to raise $3800 in total.)
With no hope in sight, my husband suggested that Lauren reach out to her college friends and ask them to donate a “virtual cup of coffee” toward her trip. She balked at the idea since many of her friends weren’t Christian and wouldn’t understand her vision of ministry. Plus how many “cups of coffee” could possibly meet the needed $1300 threshold?
After our family Father’s Day celebration following church, Lauren spent 2 hours on facebook, contacting 60 college friends to whom she had not sent support letters, informing them about her upcoming trip. She asked for a donation amount equal to cost of a cup of coffee. 18 seconds after she logged out, she received the following email:
“Prayers are answered, the Mission Team has voted to give you the entire amount. $1,300. If you still need that much, if not let us know what you need. I’ll need your address so we can send the check, or if you prefer you could pick it up at the church office or at my home. Please let me know. Sorry it took a little while but we needed to contact the as many team members as possible.”
The sender: First Reformed Church where Lauren had been invited to share a liturgical dance as part of their worship service last fall. Then twice in the spring, she shared her gift of dance with them again. Knowing that they are mission-minded and that she was short of her goal, a few weeks ago, she asked if she could share about her upcoming trip with the congregation and possibly raise support. The initial reply said that many teens from the church were going on trips and have been doing fundraisers, but they’d see what they could do, if anything. And then she didn’t hear back from them… Until 18 seconds after she logged out of facebook tonight!
Despite giving her impossible situation to the Lord, despite singing “All Things Are Possible” that morning, despite her conviction that the Lord was calling her to Uganda, Lauren doubted. And she wasn’t alone. With so much money to raise in so little time, and with the people who contracted malaria on the recent Uganda trip, my husband questioned whether God was closing a door. This most unexpected email with this abundantly generous gift erased our doubts and confirmed much more than just a mission trip experience.
While at first, Lauren thought that she shouldn’t have sent out those facebook messages, perhaps bothering her non-Christian friends, she further realized what our pastor had said. That we must do what we can. We ought not to slack in our efforts and claim that we are waiting for God like a deliveryman. The added benefit to her actions is that she now had opportunity to share what the Lord has done and will do in her life and on her trip. Any extra money raised will benefit the ministry in Uganda.
Lauren also learned that although things may seem impossible, God is still at work. Over the course of several weeks, when it appeared that prayers went unanswered, phone calls and emails silently coursed across the airwaves among the members of First Reformed Church. God spoke to people, unseen and unacknowledged, moving their hearts for this girl’s trip.
Lauren’s conclusion:
“It’s Father’s Day, and my Father gave a gift to me.”
Do you have an impossible situation? Can you trust the God of the impossible?
Jesus replied, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.” Luke 18:27
Thank you so much for sharing this amazing story with us. Yes, with God all things are possible, we just have to trust Him (which some times is still hard for me to do).