Page 50 - RiseUpWarrior

49 Chapter 21 As a young girl, I had always imagined myself getting us. Dwight and I talked and decided, “Why say, ‘NO’ to married and starting a family right away, and having a God”? Whatever for? And so we said, “Yes” to God. dozen children! I thought a whole soccer team would Several months went by and we saw no change, and do the trick. As I have shared with you earlier, when didn’t know what God had been talking about. Then God asked me to give up having a family, it was very when the New Year hit, all of a sudden the market diffcult. Dwight and I decided we must obey. But then out of the blue one day years later, I realized Why say, “NO” to God? that if I never got pregnant, I will never be a grand- mother either! This was a whole new level of sacrifce Whatever for? for me. I just had not thought it through earlier. No big family, no grandkids to spoil, no large family Christmas dinners, or any of the other traditions I had learned from crashed in the United States, and we lost almost half my own grandparents. I started to cry. Then God asked of our funding. We had already set the “tour” with me point blank, “Are you willing to give up the tradi- the different cities and dates where we would take the tional family life to serve me? Will you still serve Me, children’s ministry curriculum. Now what should we writing curriculum your whole life, even if you never do? There was no way we could afford to do what we get a family?” had done the year before, giving the material away to a thousand churches. I struggled for a while. Then I reminded myself of a promise I had made. I choose to never say no to God. You see, up to this point, we were not charging anyone So, I surrendered my family and even my plans for any money at all. If a teacher came to our event, and grandchildren. hoped to have a VBS for 100 children, we would give her 100 student books! We had little forms that each church flled out, and we would give them the amount Our choice of books they asked for. Then one year God gave Dwight and me a specifc Now we were faced with either cutting some cities, or word. He said to us, “Well done. You have done great. reducing what we gave away. We both knew right away You are allowed to stop here and keep doing what you that it was better to go to all the same cities, and NOT are doing. OR, you may grow to the next level if you drop a city. And so, we had no choice but to drop some want. But, it will hurt. It’s time to decide.” of what we gave away. Then God asked me And so we started a new system. At each event we point blank, “Are you would give a “free pack” which would include 1 of each book so that they had what they needed to make photo- willing to give up the copies and teach Sunday school. For the VBS, we gave each church a copy of each book as well as the CD of traditional family life to the new music. Everything was given with permission to photocopy. We also started putting everything online, serve me?” free and available to download and photocopy. But we also decided to continue to print the student books in mass, and offer them to the churches “at cost”. Dwight and I felt like God was giving us a genuine op- tion. At that point, our ministry had tripled over each We didn’t charge for the rent of the building or for the year. I wrote the curriculum and Dwight printed it; then electric bill. Just the cost of the paper and ink, so that we traveled to various cities in Sonora and Sinaloa there would be no end to the material we could print. Mexico where we gave the material away. The frst year When the word spread in Mexico about our material, we had 30 churches using our curriculum. The follow- we wouldn’t have to turn churches away. Each church ing year there was 100, then 300 churches and then the could buy the exact amount they needed, and our pric- next year 1000. We could continue to minister where es were half the cost of photocopies. It worked. The we were, or we could accept the new growth offered to churches were happy and we didn’t have to cut back us. It’s important to note that we didn’t feel like we had any cities from the tour. to keep growing. This was a real choice God was giving However, the transition was painful. First, it was dif-