Junkie

Shane & me at the Pregnancy Resource Center's Fundraising Gala

Some of our guests-Susan, Andrea & Lilian.

Our Youth & Music Minister Jeff and his newly pregnant (!) wife Natalie-so glad we got to have them at our table!

Thursday night was the 8th annual Gala for our Pregnancy Resource Center. I helped start this center when I was 7. Okay, I was a bit older, but only a bit.

The Gala feeds this junkie like no other day of the year. I get so high that I come home with my heart singing, "I could have danced all night...". If only I looked like Audrey Hepburn...

You see, I'm a first class junkie in two big time ways.

I am a God junkie.

I am a relationship junkie.

God first, because He always goes first. Seeing God move in HUGE ways over and over and over again is real life in pregnancy center ministry. Sure, He moves in the day-to-day work of the center (all of them, all over the country, not just our local one), but at the Gala, I get so see the big picture. I know that in 2001 I bought $58 of Christmas decor on sale to use in our not-even-established center the following Christmas season. I was a little nervous about telling the Board I'd used center funds to work the sales at Wal-Mart, but it ended okay...our budget for 2009? Almost a quarter of a million dollars.

In 2008 our center had 1100 client visits. Our first year? 100. That is over a ten fold increase! God is so big! I love seeing him work. Being involved in PRC ministry is one sure ticket to the front row of God's action packed show.

My second vice-my buds. I love making connections with people-and keeping them. In my heart I'm still your friend if we've not talked much since 3rd grade. The Gala brings in a dozen or so kindred spirits who were there in the beginning, who prayed us into existence. My elbow rubbing is really heart connecting and I get juiced from it at the Gala.

PRC work has changed my life forever. It's changed my children. Hope & Ashlyn held a fundraiser for our other PRC (which is limping along financially). They spent the afternoon drawing pictures & then calling up the Grands to buy them. Hope brought her $14 donation to the center this week and was not sure what the big deal was when they wanted to take her picture. That's what I'm talking about!

Maybe it's not pro-life ministry-but I do hope that you've connected to what God wants you passionate about. What would make swing around the room on an emotional high like Eliza Doolittle? I pray you find it and it never lets you go. May you be a hopeless junkie too.

About the fundraiser-the preliminary numbers indicate we raised about $77,000 in donations that night, 90 day pledges and a year's worth of monthly commitments. More usually trickles in during the weeks following the Gala. Way to God!