A Story of God Working through Fundraising
Our family is fully funded for our mission trip to Vietnam this summer! I’ve gone on many trips in my life, starting in high school, when I needed to fundraise, as our family couldn’t afford to send me, and I’m in the same position now. Every time I would do it, I would watch as God worked through the generosity of friends and family to provide. Time and time again, the funds would dry up as soon as I had exactly what I needed, even before I could tell anyone.
This year, five of us are going to Vietnam, and we had an enormous amount to raise, but although I did go back to some of the worry I had struggled with last summer a few times, most of the time with God’s help I was able to remember last summer’s provision and know that God would take care of it if He wanted us to go. We had to turn in all the money by July 1, and we were fully funded at least ten days before that!
What I loved about the fundraising was seeing God work through it. We started by selling Valentine’s fudge to neighbors and friends, advertising on our neighborhood Facebook page, our own Facebook pages, through flyers left at every door in our neighborhood, through text, and by word of mouth. We sold Easter fudge the same way. Later on in the fundraising, we held a Parents Night Out, and two families donated when we took care of their kids for three hours. In all these fundraisers, some donated more than what was asked, which was so helpful! After we had completed a lot of fundraising, we also just directly asked for help financially, as you can see if you go back a post or two. Friends and family were amazingly generous, and that generosity made up the bulk of what we needed!
Our best fundraiser, though, in my opinion, was the one that allowed me to see God blessing others through it. I asked everyone for donations of items to sell, and the people who gave had the blessing of clearing space in their house, getting rid of items they no longer wanted or needed. Then, I priced the items (using Amazon, Ebay, and Google Lens) and cleaned them up. We held two yard sales (for which we did advertising on Nextdoor, Facebook, by text, and on our neighborhood page), but I didn’t come down in price much like some people do at a yard sale. After the sales, I donated anything worth less than $5 to a local thrift store, but everything else went in my garage where I slowly went through each item, staging it, taking pictures, and putting it on Facebook Marketplace. As I did that, I prayed that God would direct the right buyers to the items–the people who would be blessed by the items in some way. God answered these prayers, and I was able to see these answers as people began to share their stories with me.
One woman buying a wrought iron cross told me she rarely uses Facebook Marketplace, but she saw my cross and knew immediately it belonged in a memorial garden she was creating for her late husband. She had been in grief for years, unable to break free, but God had nudged her to start living again, and she started by creating a garden in memory of her gardening husband. The cross I was selling looked remarkably like a cross ring she always wears that had been given to her by her husband, so it was a perfect fit for her garden of healing. When I told her that I prayed for these types of blessings to happen, she knew that God had given that cross to her.
A truck driver came by to pick up a super loud car horn I had (oh, the fun variety of items I get donated!). He said that when he’s driving in big cities, sometimes someone will swerve in front of him and put their brakes on suddenly in order to get him to run into their car and total it, allowing for a new car paid for by the good insurance of a professional truck driver. It scares him, and he hoped the loud horn would surprise people enough not to do that to him.
A young mom was excited to find a reasonably priced exercise bike she could put in her room and get the stress relief she needed while her young children napped.
Another woman was in a wheelchair, mostly confined to home. When she saw the teapot I was selling, she was so excited because it matched another teapot she had bought. She didn’t have much ability to do anything around the house, but she could sit and paint, and she had in mind an art project for those two matching teapots that she would then give as Christmas gifts this year. The fact that the money was going to missions was an added blessing to her, as she was a missions director for her church.
A middle-aged couple saw an antique table I was selling and knew they wanted it in their home. It was very much like the wife’s grandmother’s table, except in much better condition, and it would remind her of her grandmother every time they used it.
One young man, a worship pastor, had just moved into a new place, and he was creating a beautiful, peaceful place set aside to spend time with God in his new home. He wanted a tea stand with a beautiful tea pot and cups as part of it, and he found just that in the affordable Korean tea set I was selling.
Then there are just the stories of delight over people finding something just right for them, something they love. I won’t ever know the other blessings God gave to these people through the items I sold that brought my family the blessing of being able to serve in Vietnam this summer.