Yard Sale Fundraiser!

Back in March, I dived into seeking financial partnerships for my urban missionary work as Life Coaches for Kids director at Bethlehem Baptist.  Daily, God rewards this experience in unexpected ways, but it has also been challenging in unexpected ways.  We're facing a pretty sizeable budget shortfall (40% of our goal), so we're looking at some creative fund raising ideas.  The biggest idea we're pursuing is hosting a yard sale at our home on August 19 to 21.  Our goal is $1200 of sales, which would be enough to cover over 10% of our budget needs.  This would give us a good amount of financial leverage and be a big step in keeping Life Coaches going for all the father absent kids we serve at Bethlehem Baptist!

 

 The boys providing some help with assessing yard capacity.   

Here are the details:

• Contact us to drop off or arrange a pick up of any items you would like to donate. (We're in South Minneapolis, so we're pretty centrally located.)  
• We'll take anything you'd like to give:  clothing, appliances, books, music, crafts, decorations, furniture, tools, school supplies, technology items, etc.  If you can tape a suggested price on bigger ticket items, that's a help... but if you don't have time, no problem. 
• We'd be thrilled to have people donate craft projects, bake sale items (we're exploring potential for a Saturday morning bake sale), garden produce, etc. 
• Please let us know if you have any tables or clothing racks we could use for displaying things or plastic we could use for a cover up in the event of rain.   
• We're also looking for volunteers to help with labeling items prior to sale, for setup/takedown (4 in the morning and 4 in the evenings for about 1 hour), someone artistic who could help with signage, and anyone who'd like to help us with transporting items to our home.  

Just email or call us, if you'd like to get involved.  We're excited to see what God does through this summer event!  We're also going to talk to neighbors about piggy-backing on our yard sale to try to bring in more traffic --  maybe we'll end up with a little community-building activity on top of everything else!

Please Pray for Our Newest Match

One of the signs greeting us at the facility.

Just two weeks ago, I experienced a refreshing surprise. Tim is our newest mentor, and he met me at one of the juvenile correctional facilities in the Twin Cities.  We were there to see his mentee for the first time. This young man had set the record for the longest wait of any of the kids we've matched with mentors at Bethlehem. Month after month, there didn't seem to be any men applying to be Life Coaches that had similar enough interests and personality to draw out this teenager who was involved in gangs and alcohol abuse. But, by God's grace, Tim came along and looked like he could be a good fit.

The staff at the facility had difficult news for us. Tim's mentee was known more for pranks and being quiet with adults than for making progress during his first month in the program. But when he sat down with Tim and I, it was impressive. Tim asked a number of good questions to draw him out, and conversation started to flow. It was one of the most encouraging starts I've been able to witness in any match. Amazing actually considering the circumstances! I know we can give some credit to the right mix of personalities... but more than that it was a case of God showing up and drawing two people together in a way only He can through Christ.

Of course, this is still an uphill battle, but we're hopeful that the God who begins good works is faithful to complete them as well (Phil 1:6). Please join us in praying for God's redemptive hand to be strong in working in this young man's life and through his mentor.  Thanks!