Borrowing ...Sort of.

Sometimes I just can't use my own words to describe really awesome things. Case in point, last Friday my church hosted a World Bazaar. Now if you're asking what a World Bazaar is, here's what I would say: (aka the event from my point of view)

It was all about educating people on global poverty and issues affecting impoverished countries. There were four main topics - Hunger/Thirst, Education, War/Refugees, and Disease - each area had items for sale to assist with the issue for different parts of the world ( i.e. Digging a well in Darfur, Hot meals in Haiti, Aids prevention in Cambodia, School Supplies in Sudan, etc. etc.) - and then various ministries (Global Family Rescue, World Relief, Compassion International, etc.) were represented as well. Our small group presented the disease portion and it went really well but it was loads of work. By last Thursday I was really overwhelmed and majorly stressed out - somehow I ended up doing the brunt of the planning and coordinating for all our activities and when we had two key volunteers switch to other jobs at the last minute I was ready to sit down and cry. I hit the point where I really had to give up my need to control things and just trust that God would bless our efforts and that we could only pull it off by relying on Him. Thankfully, everything went great. Our group really pulled together to fill in wherever needed and we had some impromptu volunteers join our area, all of whom did a great job. There's been lots of good feedback as a whole from people saying they learned something new and we raised over $12,000* as well. It was a headache at first but definitely worth all the effort in the long run!

But like I said, that's only my side of the story. And if you read only that you wouldn't get the scope of the whole event like the fact that GFR set up their own petting zoo. And the work that CCC's Kid's City did to raise money for a house in Rwanda. Or maybe you just want to hear about it from someone who saw a grander overview of it all.

It was an amazing evening and I can't say thank you enough to all the people who helped make it happen. All my gratitude to those who came out and supported this mission for a life-changing and life-saving event.

*As of 11/21/06 the new total is over $16,000 raised!