Archive for October, 2019
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Change the World with Change / Chairs4Change
“What can I do to better those children’s lives?” That is the question that Alice, an older child who had also been adopted from China, asked me. She was asking me about what she could do to help other children in the orphanage. She wanted to help, but how? Her words have stayed with me for over 6 months now. I had no clue what to say to her.
How do you help children feel like they are making a difference? How do we, as adults, empower them when the need is so great that we often feel powerless and overwhelmed?
Then I was asked that same question by our littles and the middles. How can we make a difference? What can kids do? How can we help? Do you have to be a grown-up to make a difference?
After the Love Without Boundaries board meeting, I came home motivated to do more, but how? I had been praying for God to use me. I had been asking Him how. How can we do more? I asked God to show me the way. There were so many children in need all over the world. Children who are hungry. Children who want to go to school. Families that needed help getting their children surgery.
One morning, a week after the meeting, Elyse came to me crying. She had had a horrible dream where she felt like if she had just moved faster, she could have saved someone’s life. That got her to thinking and praying. She believed that God was telling her to do something now and not wait until she grew up to make a difference.
Elyse asked me how we could make it happen. I started to think of ways that people could donate a little and not ask them to take away from the good they were already doing. Later that day, I picked up my bowl of change (same bowl you see in the girls’ video). It wasn’t a big bowl. I was curious. How much was in there? When I counted the coins there was over forty dollars in it. Then we googled “How much change does the average person have in their house?” Google informed me that it was close to $28. Then a lightbulb went off, maybe we could change the world with change.
At this time, I had no clue how much Elyse was hoping to raise. She had just said she wanted to make a difference.Elyse must have been having similar thoughts about not asking people for a lot of money, because she came to me and said, “Mom, I only need 200,000 people to donate $5 and this can happen.”
My head quickly did the math. ONE MILLION dollars? What?!?! This is crazy!!! As they say, out of the mouths of babes. No adult would be so optimistic about raising one million dollars.
I just stared at her. I had no idea she was considering trying to raise one million dollars in a year. But leave it to her to say “I only need”. I tried to get her to consider a lesser amount. She kept telling me that she wanted it to be so big that it was an “only God” moment. She didn’t want anyone to praise her for her work. She wanted everyone to know it was all God.
And then I started to think about our faith. Elyse was just so sure God was telling her to do something big. She said she would be more disappointed in not trying than she would be if it didn’t work. But me? I was afraid. Afraid of what people would think and say. Afraid to step out there and look silly. The faith of a child is a wonderful thing. She didn’t care what others said about her she just wanted to do what God was asking.
The girls got together and they planned as only children can. They were going to make a video and 200,000 people would see this video and all those people would be moved too donate $5 of their change.
I was definitely the wet blanket in their party. $10,000 was a good, doable amount. They wanted bigger. I said $100,000. They told me to have faith. They only need 200,000 people. When I said I only have 1,300 followers. They changed it to 100,000 people donating $10.We prayed about it. Elyse told more people about her plan. People encouraged Elyse and the girls. Then they asked Amy Eldridge, CEO of Love Without Boundaries, what could be done with one million dollars. Amy gave them a plan that would help over 700 kids. The girls were ecstatic. When they saw how many kids they could help. They were even more motivated.
They drew up a sign.
Elyse drew up a logo and they came up with a name – Chairs 4 Change.
They made a video. Hope, Grace and Cassie helped them plan it, shoot it, and edit it.Now for the ask…
1.). Please consider donating your loose change to the girls’ cause. Turn in your money and donate it at this link. https://www.lovewithoutboundaries.com/teamlwb4/Chairs4Change or click the button below. You can do this over and over again for the next year.
2.). If your kids have been wanting to help, let them take the coins to the coin machine, take a picture and post it to the Facebook page. We will then send them a Certificate by e-mail for their involvement in the cause. They can watch as other kids come together to make BIG things happen.
3.). Please share this post so others can help.
4.). And last but not least, pray that BIG things can happen.
Thank you!
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