2/26/11

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!!! I had been number crunching in my head for a while now to figure out how I was going to afford to go to SOMA. I had received a partial scholarship, but was still tight on cash. Flood has been great in working with me to set up a payment plan so that I can still attend the conference. Then yesterday I received an email informing me that someone had made an anonymous donation and paid for my SOMA registration in full! Not only that, but my director called me and said someone was going to become a monthly donor to my personal account!

I am so grateful and want to give back. I’ve signed up in every area that I have time to help prepare for SOMA.

My car has been giving me all kinds of trouble lately. I just got new tires put on this morning and I wasn’t halfway down the street when my car went back to it’s violet shaking at idol and wouldn’t accelerate to more than 20mph. So here I sit typing away at a auto repair shop hoping I can get out of here in time to still make the Switchfoot concert I got a group of people to go to. AND I left my cell at my apartment, so I can’t let them know where I am. Ugh! It’s amusing how when one thing goes right other things fall apart. Evil sure is persistent. There was also some complications in finding a new apartment, but after a lot of searching, my new roomie and I found a place. I’m actually mostly moved in as of today.

Do not fear the winds of adversity. Remember: A kite rises against the wind rather than with it. – Unknown

2/15/11

It’s been a while since I’ve written. I hope everyone had a good holiday season. I enjoyed a nice trip back to Ohio to visit with family and had a pleasantly uneventful flight. (Despite being routed through DC before heading west back to San Diego.) I was able to have dinner with my best friend Alan, visit with my other best friend Tiffany, meet up with one of my San Diego friends (who is also from Ohio), and sing for our Christmas Eve service at church.

            When I got back to San Diego, there was much to do. I got in touch with my former roommate who owns his own promotions business and we started making plans for a Valentine’s event downtown in the Gaslamp district. We secured a great venue called the Sé Hotel with an awesome rooftop pool deck where we were going to hold an art and singles auction called The Heartbreak Hotel. We even got Ajirotutu of the San Diego chargers to be auctioned off.

            Surprisingly the preparation for this event went smoother than I thought it was going to. I was nervous since it was my first time working with outside promoters and venues. Technically the event wasn’t COTN’s. It was Sé’s and we were just the charity benefactor. So there were many things that we didn’t have to worry about. However, it did limit us as to the things we could control. In the end some of the things the venue had planned didn’t end up coming together and the event really revolved around the auctions for COTN. You’d think this would be a good thing, but we missed a great opportunity to share more about the charity. When we had our follow up, we all feel like those who came to the event who didn’t know what COTN was, left not knowing what COTN was.

It was a great event and Sé was a blessing to us. I’ve gotten tons of great feed back and it is good for me to have one of these under my belt. It’s hard to know everything that you want to accomplish without any experience. Now we know what things we want to do better, what we want to focus on more, and how to communicate better with our contacts. The hardest part so far in this whole event has been passing back and forth information and keeping everyone informed about everything they needed to know. Whew! Communication is a lot of work! I was able to make some connections with other promoters though, and am looking forward to meeting with them to see how we can partner on future events.

On the personal side, I have decided to trust God and quit my job at the gym to focus more on COTN. In the end, it was costing me more in transportation to and from work than I was getting paid for actually working. I’m going to have to move out of my current apartment and try to find someplace with lower rent because I cannot afford to stay here anymore. As much as I don’t want to admit it, I had to apply for food stamps too. *Sigh * I never wanted to be someone who couldn’t provide for myself. I know I’ve said it before, but it’s mind-boggling to find that being financially responsible doesn’t cut it.

We have recently finished a generosity series at Flood and it just reiterates how much I want to give of myself. It’s also somewhat disappointing to know the things that are keeping me from being generous. Most of my life I have felt that giving money wasn’t enough. I wanted to give of my time and talents and show hands-on generosity. Now, hands-on generosity is all that I can give. It’s frustrating to me to be unable to be generous in all aspects of my life. I still give to our sponsored child in our community group and I give whatever I have in my wallet on Sundays. It’s still so little and I know it’s less than 10%. It’s hard when my expenses are around 97-99% of what I’m making and each month I wonder if I’m actually going to have enough to pay my rent, utilities, and student loans. Food isn’t even secondary. I have to make sure I have gas in my car, all those annoying fix-ups on the car, I keep chipping away at my credit card bill, etc…

There have been several blessings that have kept me going and I am thankful every day for them. The people who have stood beside me this whole time are truly a gift. Surprisingly, I am happy for the struggle. I am glad that I am working so hard for something so important rather than something with no redeeming value.

I’ve also stepped up to fill some leadership roles in my community group. I’m working the group’s facebook page, doing the worship slides, designing group T-shirts, and filling in for the leaders when they are unable to attend. I really enjoy it. I’ve also made the commitment to attend The Heart of Generosity core class and signed up for SOMA. (I’m not sure if I’m actually able to go to it yet, but I did apply for a scholarship.)

My next assignment is to work on my personal support raising. I have had a few donations, but I need to work on finding monthly supporters. I am blown away at the support some of our other staff members have. It seems as simple as sending out a quick letter and bam they have most of their support. I can’t be too upset though. If I look back, how financially supportive was I of these kinds of things? It’s like I just recently told a friend “It takes time for good things to grow. If it happens quickly, it’s made no lasting roots.” And so I will be patient and persistent and nurture these seeds in the hopes of harvesting hearts.

NEXT EVENT: Silent auction and dinner.

Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time. – Og Mandio 

For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love, which you have shown toward His name… - Heb. 6:10

1/15/11

Welcome to the new year! After a very successful and slightly stressful (slightly might be an understatement) end to 2010, here we are ready to jump into a brand new year for the San Diego office.

I had a bit of an awakening when I arrived back in San Diego after the holidays. Honestly, I’m not that surprised. The stresses of the relays and my lack of personal support had taken its toll on me. It was expressed to me that there was concern that I have a defeatist attitude and am a negative person. It was quite a blow, but as I said, I’m not that surprised.

The problem is… I’m not really a negative person. I’m actually very hopeful. I think it’s that I often allow myself to be overly rational. I wouldn’t say that I have a defeatist attitude, I just recognize when certain things aren’t working. I don’t want to quit, but I need the ability to back up and get a better angle. Sometimes you can bang your head against a wall but you won’t get through it until you back up to see the door.

When things aren’t working, I simply think it’s time to reassess. It’s what we keep hearing in church: God may not be saying “no”, but he may say “Not right now.” When things start falling apart and I am not seeing any improvement on the horizon, rationality says, “It’s time to rethink this. Either do something different or regroup and try when situations are better.”

Things were coming so fast in December with all the different events and sales that there was really no time to step back and regroup. I kept pushing at the wall praying that I could keep it from falling over and crushing us all. However, standing that close was keeping me from seeing anything but the wall and I believe I was losing sight of the good around me. Actually… I had even discussed this with another staff member.

I had never lost faith. I went back and read my past blogs. There was still hope under all the stress. Even when I wake up and I don’t know how things will work out, I thank God that there is breath in my lungs. When rationality is telling me, “You need to try something different.” and I am unable to, I find it difficult to act like everything is ok.

However, I don’t think that God is necessarily a rational God. When things seem impossible and out of comprehension, God doesn’t even bat an eyelash. “Swim the red sea?... Naw, you’re going walk through it.” I believe that what God wants will come to pass, but I also believe that God doesn’t expect us to be foolish. It’s finding that line that is so difficult.

I’ve finally made the decision to quit the gym. I am so relieved, but at the same time so nervous. I am glad I no longer have to be a salesman or constantly making a commute I can barely afford just to get to a job that ends up being wasted hours that I don’t even get paid for. This takes such a load off my chest, but places some additional weight on my shoulders.

I have to move out in order to afford to live. I desperately feel like I need another job, but I need to have Mondays for COTN and I need the time for my private clients. And the randomness of my clients makes it difficult to find a job with hours I can work around. I have to believe that God has great plans for me. He has already blessed me with the opportunity to clean a home for some extra income. Thankfully the success of the Ripple Relay is getting me to Haiti and the DR.

I’m actually going! I’m going to the countries that I’ve wanted to get to for so long. Though I often don’t know His plan, there is no way God will let me fail. God is good! Holly asked me if I believe that statement…

I do.

UPDATE

As Children of the Nations has officially instituted Area Offices, our first year is going to be one of transition and organization. We are trying to make things uniformed across the board so as to avoid confusion.

We needed to change the name of our Facebook page to include parentheses rather than the dash. Since we already have over 100 fans of the page (cause you guys are awesome!) The name was locked and we had to reissue a new Facebook page.

Please become a fan of our new page.

Children of the Nations (San Diego)

12/5/10

I am officially an Event Planner. Today was the Ripple Relay as well as the first event for the San Diego office! It was incredible to see all the hard work come to fruition. My knees are not happy with me and I am currently sitting in my living room icing them down. I wish I could say it all went smoothly, but that was not the case. I’m sure that we will have lots of disjointedness throughout this entire first year, but there was more than was necessary this time around.

You can see all the pictures on our facebook page

I have a hard time dealing with complications when I saw them coming miles away and gave adequate warning of them. You never want to see a disaster happen just the way you predicted it would. I wonder if this is the stress that Nostradamus lived in. I find that I have this reoccurring problem in my life where I speak but am not heard. I don’t know if it’s because I lack conviction when I talk or if people just don’t believe I know what I’m talking about.

There were also a lot of last minute changes that weren’t thought through. I am also someone who is committed to my word and I am not comfortable changing things on people so close to an event. There needs to be time to prepare. I may be good with being flexible myself, but I know better than to expect that from everyone. When working with the public, you have to remember that you can only get as far as you’re willing to take the least of these. Generally most people are able to handle what you throw at them, but if we just assume, then we will leave people behind and that can severely affect us. It’s the same with anything. You must be prepared for the worst-case scenario and just hope you don’t have to use it. That’s why buildings have crazy fire codes and accessibility codes. You might not need them, but they are “just in case”.

I need to get better at being heard and getting people to follow through because I have a strong tendency to believe that if something needs to get done, then I’m going to have to do it myself. I’ve had so many people flake on things in my life, that I’ve sort of become a lone ranger. I love working on a team when the team is acting like a team (theater, sports, committees, etc…) but when people prove to be unconcerned or unreliable instead of consulting with them, I just pile the workload on my shoulders. In this event alone I was coordinator, pacer, photographer, videographer, and participant.

There are several of us who need to get better at delegating and then respecting those who we’ve delegated the work to. It’s going to derail everyone if we constantly take projects out of each other’s hands in mid-process. We have to trust that organizers know what they are doing. And if they don’t, then we have to respect that failure is a system of growth.

I know that if several things weren’t taken out of my hands then they would have run smoother, but I’m hoping the same truth about failure applies here: taking over someone else’s work has failed to improve the situation. Let us learn from this. We will only continue to fail if we don’t learn from our mistakes. I’m sure I will be reminded of this same lesson as I start to grow my events team.

Hmmmm… speaking of lessons I’ve learned; I believe that I have a note I wrote a long time ago to remind myself to schedule out events so we didn’t overlap or plan events during other happening’s in the area that cause conflicts. For example planning a college rummage sale in the middle of spring break when all the students are gone…. or a tree sale the same time as the Ripple Relay… just saying.

Overall, the sale and the relay went well enough. However, it has been brought to my attention that we are starting to lose focus. I realized this during the Orange Co. event when I needed the video to reconnect to the whole reason behind what we are doing. I think funds are becoming too forefront in our minds. Granted we are trying to get the San Diego office up and running, I really think we should be starting and ending each work day in prayer. (I’m just as bad as anyone with forgetting to do so.)

Sitting in Flood every Sunday is such a wonderful rejuvenation. It’s like going to the chiropractor to get realigned. By the end of the week I find that I am in dire need of spiritual alignment. The enemy has been particularly active among us and I can see how each person is struggling. Unawareness, insensitivity, overbearing, uncommitted, over worked, over stressed, over sensitive, disconcerted, unconcerned, prideful, over critical, drained, and questioning our intentions. This week’s message came at the right time. I have been talking about spiritual warfare and to have Matt cover the topic confirmed how COTN in San Diego, nationally, and abroad is being targeted and needs to stand strong.

The difficulties are just beginning.

We will stand together.

“The Devil will try to thwart us from praying for he has no power over those who desire to give themselves to God.” – Teresa of Ávila

Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before. – James Buckham

12/4/10

            This is the second time I’ve traveled the 12-mile relay course. First time I ran/walked it to make sure it would be safe for our participants. This time I borrowed my roommate’s beach cruiser to chalk off the route and mark the miles. The bike was helpful, but I am a good foot taller than my roommate and I couldn’t adjust the seat. My knees are a little achey and I’m not really looking forward to how they are going to feel tomorrow after having to bike the course again as well as run a mile of it.

            This morning we had our tree pickup at the Flood office from our Christmas Tree & Wreath Sale. For not really having much time to plan for this it turned out well. We had the Boucher’s taking incredible photos for us. Our friend John volunteered to be Santa. We got a lot of really good feed back on how it went and I was entertained watching our volunteer staff try to MacGyver the trees onto the tops of cars.

            My mind was elsewhere most of the time because I was hoping the pickup would end with enough daylight for me to get back to Mission Bay to mark off the relay course and make sure everything is prepared for the event tomorrow. Dueling events are not a good idea. I feel like we aren’t able to put enough into either because we don’t have enough time. But the decision was made and action was taken and all I can do now is try my best to give all I can to each event.

            Time to relax for the day. I’ll let you know how the Relay goes tomorrow.

You can see all the photos on our facebook page

Each difficult moment has the potential to open my eyes and open my heart. –  Myla Kabat-Zinn

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