Jehovah Jireh - God Provides

Coming into this year, I always wondered if by the end of this year, I would have the chance to share of an amazing story of God's provision...and last Friday, that story came.

Background information:

This year for the UTCCF retreat, we searched for a retreat site with a certain criteria. For weeks, Yuan (our retreat organizer) searched and searched with not many options to consider...they were all booked. Finally we came down to one option, Fair Havens. At first, the price they had offered was very costly, and considering that we are all students...there was no way we could pay somewhere up to $120/person just for accomodation and meals. So after some talking and negotiating, we ended up with a deal for $100/person. Even still, when we factored in the transportation + speaker + other misc costs, it would be easily $120/person, compared to previous years when it was only $80/person. So after a late night conversation with Yuan, I made the decision that it'd be too expensive and asked Yuan to cancel with Fair Havens because we just couldn't afford it.

This is where the story begins...

While I was in Urbana, I got an email from Yuan. It was actually a forward from our correspondant from Fair Havens. Essentially, after we had cancelled with Fair Havens, the lady we talked with went back to discuss with the staff at FH to see if they could further reduce the cost to accomodate us. They agreed on a price and came back to us saying, "We've tried to work it down a little more, will $92.50/person work for you?"

I was really moved. I knew there was a waiting list, where I'm sure other organizations would have taken our place probably could have paid the full price. Fair Havens was willing to give up a couple thousand dollars, just so they could accomodate poor university students like us. I was really impressed...they went the extra mile for us.

So after some discussions we said, "We'll take the offer".

God provided the retreat site.

But there was another issue on our hands...$92.50 only accounted for the accomodation and meals. With all our other costs, each person would still have to pay around $110. That's a lot of money. So we were left with the question, "How much should we charge for the retreat? How much could we ask/trust God to provide?"

At urbana God really spoke to me when the prayer coordinator shared a word that she had recieved years back from the Lord saying, "Why don't you pray something that takes me to be God to answer?" And as I reflected on it, I decided to do the same. I prayed and asked God to provide enough money so that people would only have to be charged $50-75.

So we went to the Student council to ask for money. We asked for a couple thousand and ended up with only 10% of what we had asked. So now we had to make a decision. We had enough to cover a couple dollars per person but we'd still be around $110 mark per person.

It was a tough decision. On one side, I began to ask God what was going on? Were my prayers not answered, or just not answered yet? What if someone came to me and said, "Mike, see how God hasn't provided. What this shows is your irresponsibility as chair with CCF's money. You took such a high risk, now you're stuck with either charging people too much or you're gonna let CCF take such a large hit (within the thousands of dollars)."

And as convinced I was that God would provide...as trusting as I was that God owned all things and a couple thousand is nothing too hard for God to provide...I worried. I really was concerned. I remember secret prayers that I would give up to God...honest ones, "God, I confess, I'm worried. I don't know where this money is going to come from. What lesson, what goal, what point are you trying to teach me? How am I suppose to lead this fellowship now? I know You can provide, please help my disbelief."

I still trusted God, but I struggled.

After discussing it with the committee we decided $85/person was a fair price to balance the cost and affordability. With that, we still had a gap of somewhere around $1500.

So what we did was think about fundraising methods, send letters to CCF alumni to explain the situation and ask for help, ask some local churches we knew, and primarily just pray.

Well last Friday was our last Friday before our retreat. It was a typical Friday night at CCF. When I got home after dropping off a couple people I got an email from Jon Chant (our treasurer)...and I couldn't believe it, but yet at the same time knew it was coming.

When Jon got home that night, he opened the little offering box that we pass around every Friday. Inside the box, he found an envelope with a post it note attached saying "UTCCF: God told me to give you this."

He opened the envelope and noticed a $100 bill inside. He thought, "Wow, a hundred dollars is quite a bit of money." But then he noticed that wasn't the only bill inside.

So he pulled out the contents and started to count...

1...

2...

3...

When he had finished counting...there were FIFTEEN $100 bills all together. $1500 in that envelope!!! He couldn't stop laughing and smiling...and when I read that, I started to just smile and feel this overwhelming sense of gratitude to the Lord and to that anonymous donor.

Wow. God is so faithful. God is so good.

God provided. And now there's peace in our hearts going to retreat.

If you've read this far, wow, you're a real trooper. Could I ask you for a favour? Please keep UTCCF in your prayers this week and this weekend. Prayer besides petitioning, is a request to join...join into what God is doing. I'm asking you to pray not just so that things go well with us, but because I would want you to have a part in this journey too.

There's this illustration I've used a couple times at CCF already of a scene from the Chronicles of Narnia movie. It was the part when in the blistering winter, when hope was so small, a little fox came to the children and the beavers...and in a confident whisper said, "Aslan is on the move."

God is on the move.