how great is our God?

Every time I find myself doubting God, He always tends to do something to remind me I have no reason to have any doubt in the first place. It is unfathomable to us how AWESOME God is, how awesome he has been through this process of mine and Magan's mission trip. How he works. How he brings things together, how he brings people together, how he has provided money out of NOWHERE. 

Right when I found out I was going to Africa, I immediately began to think of ways to fundraise for the trip. I thought one fun way to raise money would be by selling cute tshirts. I tried to figure all of the tshirt info out about a month ago, but it just seemed like it wasn’t going to work out for us. However, last Thursday, February 28th, something on my mind made me message this organization on Etsy called, “Clothed in Hope.” They sell the cutest ever "Love" shirts, with the “o” being Africa with a cute design along with different colors to choose from. When I messaged them all I asked if they would be interested in giving us a discount if we bought a minimum of 50. The shirts are regularly $15.00 and they told us that the minimum that they would sell them to us for was $11.00 each. Plus shipping and tax. I said okay, not thinking about the tax and shipping and all that. The organization also has a limited amount of each color due to them only restocking the shirts every so often.  Well, for some reason, I thought this would be a great idea. I was happy with us making $4.00 total off the shirts, so really $2.00 each. So Thursday night we started selling the shirts. I put it on instagram, twitter, facebook, everything. Magan did too. Within at least 3 hours we had at least 80 sold, if not more. People we aren’t even close friends with and people we barely even talk to were asking us if they could help us sell the shirts. Kristin Olinger, Chelsea Miller, Abbi Hill, and so many others. Dee and Michelle helped too. People from out of state that we didn’t even know were wanting to buy them after finding them on social media. So by that time we had at least 120-130ish. Not including the ones from online. So, way more.  I couldn’t believe it.

Yesterday as I got home from school, I checked my mail. I had mail from Union University Athletics. I saw my name was written out in handwriting. I honestly thought it was some college transfer junk mail, but I opened it anyways because I was interested in who in the world was trying to contact me about their Athletic program. LOL. It was a letter and a check from Katherine Woodruff- a lady from twitter who saw the shirts from Love Africa’s RT. I gave her my address and everything. I told her the shirts were $15+shipping and told her if she gave me her address I would give her a price on the shipping. She told me that the shipping would be covered. When I looked at the check, it was written for $65!!!! I had one of my hyperventilating attacks. Someone I don’t even know wanted to support us $50!! 

Later that day, I followed a lady who wrote the book “31 Days of Forgiveness” on Instagram. She saw the picture and wanted one. 

Following that, a girl named Laura Lea Medders commented on my tshirt post on instagram asking me to text her about the shirts. I was speechless- this girl has like 700 followers on instagram, and 1000 on twitters and found MY shirt. Plus, I’ve been obsessed with her blog for MONTHS. I found her on twitter forever ago, and I guess I kinda stalk her blog haha. She went to Africa a few months ago for four months, so all we talked about for awhile was about her trip and my trip. Then, she started asking how much money I had raised, how much the trip was, how much more I needed, how fundraising was going, etc. I answered all of her questions, and then she told me she wanted to help us fundraise!!! Like wait wuuhhhh.!??! I don’t even know this girl, I was confused.. and of course I’m not gonna deny that! I was really expecting her to just say that and then it slowly fade and her forget about it. We talked a little longer about fundraising, and then she asked if she could call me! I thought it was kinda weird she wanted to call me because I don't even know the girl, but I told her sure anyways. She called and we talked for about 20-30 minutes about everything- she gave me fundraising tips and so much encouragement. She suggested that I set up a paypal account and a square account, which she said would help for out of state buyers, so I set those up. Then, she asked if I knew “Christian Girl Probz” on twitter. I told her I did and she told me that was her! Today she tweeted about our shirts on her personal twitter, retweeted it with the ChristianGirlProbz account, put them on instagram, and put them on her facebook for $20 including shipping. We've had so many people want them all because of her!!! Amazing. We don’t even know this girl. This money is coming out of the sky. That doesn’t JUST HAPPEN!!!!! 

Back to what I was saying earlier. Magan and I were HAPPY with making $4.00 off of each shirt. If we sold 150 profiting $4.00 each, that would be $600, so $300 each. Not including the shipping costs- which would be $30 for 50.. so $90 shipping. Basically we weren’t making hardly anything. Well, last night I got the idea to see if anyone in Decatur could make the exact same shirts. Honestly, I didn’t think it would happen, but it wouldn’t hurt to just see how much they would be. So today on my lunch break I went to Lang’s. I had asked Madi a few weeks ago where their sorority got their tshirts from and that’s where she told me. So I went there. I printed out the pictures of the shirt we wanted from Clothed in Hope, and asked if they could do it, how much it would be, if it would be the exact same shirt, and all that. I told them we had at least 130-but would have more by the 22nd. When they told me how much they would be each with at least 144 shirts- they said $6.63+tax!!!! I literally can’t believvvve it! That’s insane. While we were willing to get them from Clothed in Hope for $11 each, we can get them for $4 with NO SHIPPING COSTS!!! Like what.?!?! I still can’t believe it. That means we would be making DOUBLE what we would with the other company! Actually more, since we wouldn’t be shipping! HOW GREAT IS OUR GOD!!!! That’s literally all that I can get out of my mouth to explain how speechless I am. So if we sell 150 shirts at $8, that is $1200!!!! -$600 each. But actually, we’ll be making more than that because after 144 shirts, each shirt makes the price go down more and more. Ahhhhhh.

Today, me and Magan BOTH reached the $1600 mark for our trip. God, YOU ARE SO FAITHFUL.