This past year I was Co-Vice President of Invisible Children United at UNCW and what a year it was. I became in charge of communications (email and facebook), helping run meetings and plan events. 2 major events that we put on was the annual ‘DISPLACE ME’ walk from our campus to downtown Wilmington and spend the night in front of the courthouse. The 2nd event was an Invisible Children Benefit Concert that I took charge of with the help of a magnificent Co-Vice President and friend Kristen VanDeusen. Both of these event could not have come together except by the grace of God and His might power through us.
The Benefit Concert in particular is something that I began to dream back in October and pray, pray BIG. Boy did God provide!
In the midst of this past year, I’ve been reading ”Wide Awake” by Erwin McManus (still am cause I am slow and could never find the balance of ‘fun’ reading and school). I’ve seen the principles that he proposes about living Wide Awake come to life and God has just blown me away and I am not afraid to dream BIG now. And this is my testimony to some of McManus’ Wide Awake principles through the Invisible Children Benefit Concert:
DREAM: I was given the dream of this benefit concert in October and thats just where it began. I dreamed of packing out the local concert venue, the Soapbox for Invisible Children, free of charge to us as a club and to simply raise money with the door entry fee.
DISCOVE: Since the dream was in place, it was time to DISCOVER and EXPLORE how it was going to be put together. God helped out by 1st by providing a partner! Kristen! We began searching and asking bands if they would play for free, brainstorming and planning fundraisers in general, think about advertising the concert, date/time, etc. and yes we believed we were in over our heads at some points.
ADAPT: Adapting was HUGE for us…we got the Soapbox for our venue, but dates didn’t work out, calling/emailing/facebooking/myspacing/whatever form of communication you can think of was EXTREMELY hard with the Soapbox as they never responded it seemed like, Patience was so key. The Soapbox asked for $300 for the rent of the space/lighting/sound which is really good! We turned to the Residence Hall Association on our campus for some money at first they were going to provide, but then withdrew their offer later. We adapted, we would just use some of how much we made from the concert to pay the Soapbox and trust that God would provide and overwhelming amount to us.
EXPECT: As everything started to fall into place, it was time to expect great things to happen at the concert, but little did we know, God’s plans were bigger and He provided.
FOCUS: Along this process, both Kristen and myself did lose FOCUS. We were trying to put the concert together on our own will. We hit rock bottom and the process slid backwards. At the peak of realizing we were not going to get any funds from any organization on campus, not able to get some fundraisers in place, the Soapbox not responding to our messages, and bands asking for money, we finally realized “We got to pray before our little concert committee meetings, and leave it up to God.” That 1st day we did so, there was relief and comfort that God was in control. Later that week, a band came to US and asked to play at our concert for free, same with another from Michigan, but at that point we only accepted the local one, who would eventually headline, Crimson Refuge.
CREATE: The week came for the concert, we had 400 flyers and several posters printed and began tabling on our campus to advertise, and interest/awareness was raised. Concert day: we got there early to set the area and make sure everything ran smoothly. Some of the bands arrived, set up the sound for the first performance, Jason Andre, and we asked the band members that were there to pray with us. We laid the concert at God’s feet, and it was time to ENJOY…
ENJOY: There’s no easy way to explain the satisfaction of just sitting back and watching God do His work. After months of planning, trials, valleys and mountains….the concert was actually happening. I had dreamed something so huge to myself, but I was really throwing pebbles at God, He threw boulders back. We raised a $240-$260 for Invisible Children. For the year $1030…I really have no clue where all that money came from, but God DID WORK!
There are a lot more little things that could be explained and happened but I really cannot put it all into a blog post, you’ll have to ask me. Our God is a powerful God! If we dream BIG, and pray BIG, and BELIEVE He can make it happen, then if its by HIS will, He will use us and our pebble dreams, to turn into AVALANCHE GOD-sized dreams and it will go down.
