Today was one of those days, that you are just amazed at what God is doing. A day of gladness, a day of good news! One that i want to pass on to you.
My morning, started off with a meeting with Rev. Glenn Dames, the senior pastor at St. James AME. We met for almost two hours talking about our shared passion for youth and families. I had been praying particularly for an African-American pastor to link arms with, for we desire to do gospel-centered community, which very much includes multiple races if I am reading Revelation right! We also believe that their is work to be done in our town when it comes to racial reconciliation and it is to our shame that Sunday is the most segregated day of the week.
Anyways, i was very encouraged by his enthusiasm and desire to work together. i pray that God will continue to develop that relationship.
Right after that i got a call from Kristy Sacik about our thrift store venture. We had asked her to go on a info gathering mission so we could make a wise decision as to if the thrift store really is a via income producing option for HNB. She came into the office and she was glowing with excitement. The first thing she asked me was, "
what do you think the SPCA thrift store sells a month at their old location (which is where we are considering moving to)?? I said, my prayer is that it would be more than $5,000 a month for it probably wouldn't be worth all the work if it is not that high! She grins and says, they sold between $35,000-$50,000 a month in gross sales- can u believe that? I had no idea that a thrift store could produce that kind of income, but if that is really possible, do you know how much ministry we could be doing with that kind of income? That is just awesome!!!
This news coming on the heels, that we now have our 2nd estate sale pick-up this weekend, which is a very high end sale. God has already supplied a garage full of items from another quality sale and now we have another one and we haven't even made a phone call yet. We don't even have a store. we haven't even asked all the partners and churches that we know, that would be interested in donating items to our cause to give. I am just blow away.
It gets better. After that i got an email back from the mayor saying he would like to meet. He came to our pastor's prayer meeting, which is amazing that he sought us out and not the other way around. I introduced myself at that meeting and he told me to email him, but i was skeptical if he would email me back or be interested in meeting about HNB. In fact, after that i call another call from the city, that they would like to schedule a meeting next week to talk about possible partnerships with some other interested parties for a youth community center. I had been trying to work my way up the chain of city employees to talk about how the city could help us with acquiring a youth center and hadn't really gotten very far. Now, i am asked to attend a meeting that is two steps up the chain from where i was working, and they are the ones calling me.
Not every day is a day of soaring on wings like eagles, but today surely was...
Thank you God! I needed that!
I pray that it encourages you as well.
trey <><
