in a previous blog about a month ago, i shared that i had passed out 120 marked $1 bills, based on giving to god what belongs to god. my challenge to the congregation was to utilize that $1 bill as seed money and then report back what was done to 'give back to god'.
i report today that there were many things done, and i want to share that information here, at least briefly. all proceeds, unless otherwise stated, were returned to our church where we will send them to our mission fund, world service.
$4 came back that very first Sunday. $2 was sent to World Vision who multiplied that amount by 5 to save young lives. cupcakes were made for our tuesday afterschool program, as well as a cake walk for our halloween carnival. jalapeno jelly was made and sold, the profits given back to the church. our halloween carnival, for which a number of marked dollars were contributed by the way, brought in $300, half going to unicef and the other half going to umcor -- united methodist committee on relief, that serves as a first responder to places throughout the world who are hit by a natural disaster.
someone was inspired to donate $25 for our holiday gift bag ministry for the chowchilla women's prison, as well as purchasing a box full of greeting cards for that same project! Someone bought a 'flock of chicks' from heifer project, funds went to the food pantry, and someone creatively returned the earnings of 'a dollar saved is a dollar earned' philosophy. this seed money was added to donations to a children's toy drive in central baja, and a vacation bible school program in south mexico. someone made straw jewelry, purchased communion bread, and supported the hmong women's car wash. an egg roll sale from one family netted 20 1/2 dozen egg rolls totaling $106.00.
another idea formed from someone who was not even in worship that day. but gwen bortner's husband arlis shared with her this challenge. Gwen, a professional knitter, creatively put together a knitting pattern, with the proceeds going to cancer research. she placed the story on ravelry, basically facebook for knitters. and through a series of sharing -- dare i say, evangelism, or 'you can't keep the good news (of jesus) to yourself! -- people not associated with this church, or any church or even this community, got on board...and you can too! pass this site onto your knitting friends: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/mariposa-flip
someone purchased gas to pick green beans, someone held a candy sale, and someone even invested the dollar and made .93 cents! a couple focused on 'found money', having had a series of fortunate instances, and were able to donate $230 to the merced county rescue mission for their thanksgiving dinner. and finally, three yet-to-be completed projects were planned: a crayola crayon box of 64 was purchased to do a crayon ministry, a donation is planned for the children's hospital of central ca, and a soon-to-be knitted scarf will be done for charity.
the point, of course was not about the funds raised but our ability to do more together than we could ever possibly do on our own. allowing god to work through us is the miracle!
the result is that from 120 marked one dollar bills, eight times that amount, or $970.93 has been donated to mission. awesome, don't you think?
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