As of today, 86% of the funds have been raised for my trip to Haiti! The bottle drive was a huge success! Thank you to EVERYONE who donated empty cans & bottles for this cause.
A HUGE ‘thank you’ to Evelyn Francis for organizing the ‘Chaparral arm’ of the bottle drive. If you know Ev, please pat her on the back (or better yet, give her a hug) the next time you see her. She sent around an email to her network, mobilizing her friends and neighbours to bring all their empties to her house in support of my trip to Haiti. And with that, a GIGANTIC ‘shout out’ to the residents of the Lake Chaparral community in Calgary for donating over $200 worth of empties in only a few short days. And, as always, the ultimate glory goes to God for orchestrating it ALL!
I saw the power of God at work again today as my friend Michael and I went door-to-door to collect empties. We parked on a quiet neighbourhood street and started knocking on doors. We received no answer at several homes, and of the ones who did answer, ALL of them (without exception) had cleaned out their garage/shed/basement and cashed in their empties LAST WEEKEND! After walking up one side of that street and down the other, I was beginning to feel discouraged. That’s when I looked at Michael and said, “I think we need to pray.” He agreed, so we returned to the car and prayed that God would open the floodgates of blessing and direct us on which neighbourhood to go to next. We both felt that we should try the area where Michael lives, as his neighbours had some empties to donate. So we knocked on every door on his block and came away with a few garbage bags full. When we stopped to grab a bite to eat for lunch, I checked my cell phone and there was a message from my friend Susan, saying she and her mom had another four bags of bottles for us. So we agreed to swing by and pick them up. On our way to Sue’s mom’s place, I received a call from the mother of one of my piano students, saying that someone had given her another two bags of empties for me! And (this is the best part!), a black sky was threatening to rain on us the whole time we were outside today. When we got to the bottle depot, the line-up was out into the parking lot, so we waited outside with about a dozen big garbage bags of beverage containers. As soon as we were safely inside, in the shelter of the building (trading in the goods for almost $100 cash!), the heavens opened up and the rain POURED. Michael and I looked at each other and all we could say was, “Thank you, Lord.” What an amazing God we serve!
I will still be collecting bottles until June 10th, so if you are in the Calgary area and have empties to donate, please let me know and I will be more than happy to pick them up from you!
As you may have already heard me say, if funds are donated that go above & beyond the cost of my trip, the money will go to purchase supplies for the nursery at GLA. Some of you have been asking about sending supplies with me for the orphanage when I go. I’ll be blogging about that in my next post, so please stay tuned....
