Wednesday, July 1, 2009

How Feed Fed Me - Part 2

I thought I'd take a moment to share these 2 precious stories with you. I LOVE how God used "Feed the Forgotten" to absolutely change us. . I still have more writing to do on how He used it in my life. I feel like I've been drinking from a firehose lately with the Lord teaching me SO much!

The first story is from Amy Cook. I ADORE her. She is an amazing single mom to 4 kids who just came to know the Lord a few years ago. She follows so passionately and beautifully that I encourage you to read her blog. You will be challenged and encouraged by her. Besides what she wrote in this email, she donates parts of her earnings to the orphanage that our church sponsors, Rapha. No, she doesn't make a ton of money and can just toss some to those who need it. Actually, she is a single mom scraping by as a waitress at our local IHOP. However,
she believes PASSIONATELY that God has called us to minister to the orphan and widow and she lives it out. She has convinced the other waitresses to take one day a month and donate all their tips! In the months where the waitstaff isn't interested, Amy offers to do their grunt work for donations. It makes me cry just writing it. THIS is what it's all about. Thank you Amy for challenging me to live wholly and deeply
committed to our Jesus!
From Amy:
"I read my kids your first blog to kick off feed the forgotten. Aj really took it to heart. He got so excited. So we made a collection cup and started putting money in it. We made tally marks as we went....and we took advantage of the matching funds and the one girl who donated ten dollars if you donated ten dollars. We gathered $27, but added up it fed 400 meals. WOW! How easy was that? ...well, it was easy...thats the problem. We just basically used our spare change for the past two weeks. I think AJ learned that we can make a difference. But I imagine...what if I really sacrificed. I mean really sacrificed....what if a lot of people did? What if....we really shared what we had? What if..... we really believed that thats our family and friends dying of starvation? What if...? Amy

The next email is from my sweet friend, Cindy. I LOVE how God used "Feed" to not only feed others but show HIMSELF to Cindy!

From Cindy:
"I have been so touched by your Feed the Forgotten posts! My husband was laid off a few weeks ago, and our budget has been so tight, I’ve had to put a hold on some of our extra giving. It has been so hard to do! Today, as I sat here catching up on your blog, I realized there IS money to give!! I don’t know if you are familiar with ebates.com, but it is one of those site where if you shop through them, you earn a percentage of your purchase back as cash. At the end of the quarter, you receive either a check for the cash, or you can have them place the money in your "Fast cash" account, which is basically an online Visa gift card. I checked my balance and had $11.31 available. It seems like such a small amount, but then I thought, no..it will be matched to $22.62, and when you do the math, $22.62 divided by $0.14 per meal equals 161 people fed! THAT SO ROCKS!! :o) I love it! Yay for "found" money! "

God is SO good! I love how He's changing us in this process! If you have a "How Feed Fed Me" story, I'd love to hear it!

6 comments:

Vanessa said...

It's always VERY refreshing to see the Lord's hands at work! Great work and I look forward to seeing the next thing you work on succeed as well!

Unknown said...

Awesome, inspirational stories!

Andrea @ The Train To Crazy said...

Great stories!! Very inspiring/challenging.

Love said...

love these stories.

how many multi colored necklaces do you have left??




lovepalm21@hotmail.com

Karen said...

Hi Brandi - just wanted to say THANK YOU for all your work on behalf of Hopechest and orphans! Your dedciation is appreciated and inspirational! ~Karen Wistrom (home from Ethiopia with our 2 adopted sons) www.family-from-afar.blogspot.com

Jman's momma said...

I think it is so awesome how God has shown us through Feed The Forgotten that every gift matters. That is truly is the heart behind the gift that he cares about. He can supply and multiply the money but the heart... Oh MAN!!!

love ya!