A very long time ago my husband and I had an only child. Our boy was two and we wanted him to have a sibling, we wanted to establish a big family. Back to back miscarriages made it difficult to hope. One Wednesday night, in worship, I felt the Lord ask me if I’d let Him name our next baby. My response was something to the tune of “Lord, if You’ll give me another baby I’ll let You name it anything You want.”
And so the idea of allowing our youth group to name our second child was born. Months before we were pregnant, my good-humored husband and I had mapped out a strategy to receive, vote for and eliminate names for our would-be baby, all in the name of missions. During this season I was the Speed the Light coordinator for our youth group. Speed the Light involves teenagers raising funds for missionary transportation and communication needs. We went to our youth pastor, in faith, to explain the campaign idea. When he asked if I was pregnant I said, “That’s God’s department. The plan is the part I can take care of.”
Within two months of my ‘yes’ to God, we were expecting. A few months later, we bravely began our naming campaign. Students initially nominated names; a dollar a name. We began with 164 potential names. Some were lovely, like Andrew and Paige. Some were concerning, like Shakira and Shekinah. Some were downright frightening; like the frontrunner with the junior high boys; Macaroni. The missions campaign was thankfully sixteen weeks long. In the first four weeks we accepted names, any name for a dollar. In the next six weeks, we voted for our favorite names; half of them naturally eliminated after the ultrasound revealing our daughter. It was unanimously decided, though, that Macaroni would be a girl name. The last six weeks we voted names ‘off the island’, thankfully the junior high boys weren’t great listeners and accidentally voted off their own choice. Macaroni was off the table. The weeks progressed, names going head to head week after week; your dollar was your vote. Finally, the night before she was born, the top giver throughout the campaign got to choose the winner between the final names. Sarah Audrey was born at 7:30am the next morning. She raised $1500 for missions before she drew her first breath.
I say all this to say that Sarah has always had missions in her destiny. This summer, at very nearly sixteen, she’s received her first opportunity to go overseas. We’ll be departing in June for a missions trip to Thailand where we’ll be serving alongside seasoned missionaries in a children’s home, on a college campus and in local churches. There are actually four mother-daughter units on this trip and many of them from former seasons in our life; including a previous baby-sitter, missionettes leader and sunday school teacher from Sarah’s preschool years. God has such a neat way of putting things together, doesn’t He?
So we are half-funded. Even in the midst of our cross-country move, this opportunity came up and Rob and I felt like it was the right time to grab on to it. We’ve paid all our initial costs; flights, passports, etc. Would you consider praying and perhaps a financial donation toward the remaining balance of $2600? It would be greatly appreciated.
Click below to access our GoFundMe account.