THE FAITH OF A CHILD!

Well, let's talk about the happier things in life!

Every March our church has a Missions Conference, where we raise support for the 20-some-odd missionaries locally and around the world that we partner with. The conference is awesome because we always have great guest speakers, and sometimes get to hear from our missionaries serving in various countries around the world. We also have a Children's Conference, where the children are educated on what a missionary does, they learn about different cultures, and get to also hear about the glorious things that God is doing in different parts of the world through some of these missionaries. The kids love it! Last year they had the opportunity to taste different foods from around the world. This year they made goodie bags for the local homeless shelter that our church helps to support.




As the conference time approached, there was a lot of talk about the auction and Faith Promise pledges, which is two of the means in which we raise support. Laci really expressed interest in wanting to do something to help raise money. She sat in on the first conference night and watched the videos and listened to our guest speakers. All through the night she again expressed interest in how she could help out. So later that night when we came home her father suggested she do what we were going to do, make a faith promise pledge. Then he explained to her how it worked. That night when she went to bed, they prayed about an amount that God would have her to give towards her faith promise, and then the next morning she said, "I know what my amount will be. It will be $50." So, she filled out her faith promise card. And she wrote down $50.


Well, I was curious to see where a five-year-old child would get $50 from (oh ye of little faith). But not a night went by without this little girl praying about her faith promise. And some nights when she was too tired to pray and I would pray over her, if I happened to forget about the faith promise, she would surely remind me and scold me about that, and then we would surely have to go back and add it in.

Well, my little girl will be 6 next week, and for her birthday she received an envelope in the mail. It was a birthday card with cash in it. As her father helped her to count it out, and we realized there was $50 in there, we all looked at each other and said "Faith Promise."

But the cool thing about the whole process was watching her during the last two months. Sometimes when we go places and Laci plays her fiddle, some people will give her a few dollars here and there to hear her play. So she started a little savings that she called "Laci's Faith Promise Money." She made up an envelope and every time someone would give her money, she would put it in her Faith Promise envelope. One day she found a dollar on the playground and said that it was part of her faith promise money and came home and put it in her envelope. She has managed to save $8 from March up until this point. And when she found out about her $50 she also said, "but that's not all I have," and she ran and got her envelope and added her $8 to the $50. So she gave over and above her Faith Promise pledge.

Isn't that the coolest? God reveals himself even to the smallest of us! I don't always see the fruit of the spirit in my two little ones (they could say the same about me too as well) but sometimes God does things to let me know that he is truly working behind the scenes. What a great thing she has learned about the Lord at the ripe old age of soon-to-be-6!