A Risk Worth Taking

Did you see the news on Facebook?  We've raised $30,000 so far.  Wow, guys...that is AMAZING!  We still have a ways to go to reach $500,000, but I'm encouraged by the progress as we're moving forward.

Most mornings when I wake up, this goal seems too big.  But then, just when I need it most, God speaks words of encouragement to me.  This week the pick me up came through an old college friend that I hadn't spoken to in years.  But she sent me a beautiful letter about my God sized dream of a school in Kenya.  She had just heard a speaker talk about taking risks.  My friend wrote in reference to this speaker:

We live with the perspective to not take risks, to stay safe, but life is risky!  Then she (the speaker) got to the part that made me think of the school you want to build.  She talked about Noah and how he was willing to build something that hadn't been built before, for a flood like he had never seen before.  It was risky.  It looked foolish to the people around him....But if we are willing to look foolish, we will see the same results that these great heroes of faith did throughout scripture.

Friends, I know that this vision looks foolish to some.  I have seen a few eyebrows popping when I try to explain, and even I myself realize how big of a task this is.  But God is bigger.

And I always bring it back to the kids.  I see their heart and passion for learning.  I keep visual reminders of the kids hanging on my fridge.  One of the little girls named Valary, wrote me a letter filled with beautiful marker decorations, that said, "I hope your baby Ellis will be sliping well."  I smiled at the spelling and her thoughtfulness, and then I realized that this same girl herself might not be sleeping that well.  She might go to bed every night on the dirt floor of her home, as so many kids in Kenya do, or likely sharing a twin bed or wooden seat with multiple other siblings.  This is the reality that I know so many of our kids in Kenya face.

I want to build a school for Valary, and all the other kids like Valary out there.  I want to change the opportunities for their future, to level the playing field from the start of their learning.  Because when I think about Valary and the other kids, suddenly this feels like a risk worth taking.