Monday, November 29, 2010

11/29/10

Wow! Live and learn. Today the San Diego crew went up to Orange County to help out with their event. Sara in the COTN Orange Co. office had pulled together a golf tournament, dinner and silent auction. We drove up early in the morning and started setting things up for the auction, wrapping baskets, decorating, and getting the logistics figured out.

            There was a lot we weren’t ready for and didn’t have figured out, but we pressed through it. It was frantic, frustrating, and yet fun when it all came together. In the end the event was a success.



            Lately I have been getting very rushed in preparation for the Ripple Relay and on top of that having the Christmas Tree Sale butting up right against it. Having to deal with a sale and our very first event at the same time is making me feel like we aren’t giving enough focus to either event. I’ve been working late into the night just to try to make sure that each goes off without a hitch. To make it even more stressful, I am now not simply planning the events, but need to participate in them as well. So planning, actuating, and trying to raise funds while I’m still working at the gym isn’t leaving me much room for anything else.

            Tonight during the dinner they showed a video about COTN. It went over all that COTN does for the children in our countries. It was at that point I started to find what I have been missing these past weeks. I have been so focused on the events that I forgot what I was doing it for. I could feel my heart swell as I watched the video and renew my strength. This IS what I want to be doing. I want to know that all these efforts aren’t just for some 12-mile loop around the bay, but for the lives of children who need our help. I have been losing my reasons, my heart, and my faith. I have been putting far too much on my shoulders and forgetting to make God a part of it, when He should be all of it. I needed that video at that moment to remind me of these things.

By the time it ended and we had cleaned up and regrouped, we were more than ready to make the drive back to San Diego for some much needed rest.

            It was good to get an event under our belts before we, as the San Diego office had our own. We needed some practice at working together in event situations to prepare us for our upcoming Ripple Relay event. There was a lot that we took away from Orange Co. and I am thankful for the experience.

Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people. – Ephesians 6:7

Friday, November 26, 2010

11/26/10


I cannot express enough how much I HAAAATE soliciting door-to-door. Maybe it’s just out of my comfort zone. Or maybe… I’m just no good at it at all. To be honest, I can’t say that it’s something I even want to get better at. I feel like I’m invading their sanctuary. I don’t want to PUSH this organization on anyone. The passion speaks for itself. Let the people hear! Unstop their ears!

Persistence doesn’t necessarily constitute success. I’m still trying to teach myself to accept that failure doesn’t only cause growth, but that failure is inevitable. There is no one down the line to help. We don’t even have everyone at the front of the line yet. The hardest part is that with each bump in the road, I’m finding that I once again must reinvent the wheel. It’s hard enough to hit a wall with people outside, but when people on the inside stop believing in the process, it’s twice as hard to tear the work apart and form it into something to please the raging lion. Sometimes a quick fix is not the answer. Sometimes we simply must see things through. Oh, how I do think the enemy is enjoying this.

And I’m tired. I’m so very tired.

Sometimes it’s harder when others believe in me. Especially when they believe I am capable of more than I believe that I, myself, am capable of. Because then if the efforts fail, I know it’s me who has let them down and given them false hope.

The cloak of each day manifests itself on our shoulders until we can bare it no longer and discard it. Some keep closets full of the past while others let it fall from them as they drift into sleep. As we wake we find the new cloak waiting to be donned. Sometimes light and clean, ready to be broken in, molded to our body. Other times heavy and thick with patches of past cloaks.

This world changes and ebbs. We see ourselves cycle through one friendship to another casting off each promised day and investing our hopes in the next. Sometimes I have trouble believing in tomorrow when I have not yet resolved today. There are children in other countries counting on us. Let us not forget that.

I don’t think this is helping and I can feel it sinking into my bones. I fear the enemy is close.

When the darkness closes in Lord, still I will say: Blessed be the name of the Lord!

Sunday, November 7, 2010

11/7/10

These past few weeks have been packed full. Finally finishing my first full month back at the gym trying to get everything back on track, plugging away at the Ripple Relay, preparing for Flood events, and working, reworking, and recreating a marketing video.



I have been up until anywhere between 2-4am working on a video for our Ripple Relay. I remember this is the very reason why I didn’t go into commercial art or IT. As much as I love doing it, after the third time of trashing a completed video to start over with corrections, (after 8-10 hours at my other job) it’s enough to stress anyone out. But, thankfully, we all came to an agreement on the video and all the tweaks and bugs were hammered out. It turned out rather nice. I do miss some of the emotion of the other videos, but that is something I’ve learned to take with a grain of salt because I realize that everyone interprets differently and everyone has different emotional connectors.

Ripple Relay from AngelaM on Vimeo.

I’m hoping we can reach a lot of people quickly with this video. We are currently far below our intended registered participants. With the cost of renting the park ground and shelter, we might not even make money off this event. It sits like a rock on my stomach. If this fails than I am 0 for 2, since the 5K fell through. I really start to worry about how qualified I actually am for this position. Great ideas are only great if they can become reality. 12 miles is becoming a longer and longer distance in my head and it is leaving us miles from being funded.

I think “courage” is my biggest focus right now.

Some updates are that we secured an office in Sorrento Valley. It is currently unfinished, so we are looking for a contractor to help us build a wall, install carpeting, put in a small kitchen/dinette, and maybe a few small wiring things. The owner of the building is extremely kind and gracious to us. I am hoping that this is a great place for us to grow and thrive.

We got our coffee in from the DR and I already know that I’m gifting a pound of it to someone for Christmas. We are also selling trees and wreathes for Christmas. If you’re in the San Diego area and are interested in a tree or wreath, you can email me (angelamedaugh@cotni.org) or talk to one of our impact team members.

We also have some great contacts at UCSD who are interested in starting up a COTN club on campus. We are so excited by their enthusiasm. I am amazed at how the San Diego office is continually blessed by the eagerness of people to get involved with the COTN organization. I often think about how much I hope that the other area offices find (if they haven’t already) a community who is spiritually on fire and tapped into a motivation of service.

Our end goal is to have many more churches and businesses in the San Diego area involved in COTN, but I am well aware of how much Flood has been our solid foundation even before an area office here was even a thought in Chris Clark’s head. Flood has been going to Malawi since 2002. I believe Chris and Matt’s friendship has been a key factor in COTN’s growth in the San Diego community. It is disappointing to go to my other church in PB and hear them speak of their involvement in mission work and yet though I offer my services to their media team and have presented them with two opportunities to be involved with COTN, they have not even returned my emails. Sometimes it is difficult for a church to expand beyond its own four walls or immediate congregation.

Passion cannot be drawn from an empty well and the spirit cannot fill it if it has been sealed closed. We all know by now that the handle of the door is on the inside and it is up to us to open it. Some will put up a wall. Currently, the spirit is not moving COTN to defiance, but rather, to an open invitation. There is something significant about “letting the children come…

That is another amazing thing about joining this ministry. COTN has not chosen the location of the area offices… the areas have chosen COTN. I remember Chris being very particular in conversations about expansion while we were at the conference in Silverdale. We are not an imposing organization. We are not strategizing where our next area office is going to be. We are an infectious organization that goes where the spirit moves and develops us. Thinking about it, I wouldn’t want it to be any other way. Each and every person who has come to work for COTN has his or her own incredible story. I wouldn’t want someone to work for COTN just for the sake of having a job. The passion people in this organization have for the organization is what I believe makes us so powerful and progressive.

Be humble in the presence of God's mighty power, and he will honor you when the time comes. 7God cares for you, so turn all your worries over to him. – 1 Peter 5:6-7