A spirit-led finish to reach the goal!

By: American Decency Staff

As we wrote just a few days ago (December 31).  A friend of this ministry – an  anonymous donor  – gave us a much more challenging “challenge” than usual. 

The details again were:  He and his wife would match any gift from anyone who had never given before or those hadn’t given to this ministry since 2013. 

Finding new supporters (new friends) is not the easiest thing in these days. 

And, on that date (December 31) we reported that we were still short $2,626.00.  Shortly after reporting that an individual called stating they were giving a gift for $2,000.

Then in a later email alert “It ain’t over til’ it’s over”,  (after receiving the gift of $2,000 and other gifts, we were then only $431.00 short at the end of the last business day of the year.   

In the late evening, with hope and prayers, we checked credit card gifts just before the end of the day (December 31)  which praise the Lord positioned us at $105.02 short of the goal.  

Lastly in our journey, we hoped that as we checked our mail today there would be end of year checks and gifts (postmarked in 2015) given to ADA that qualified for the match. 

In checking gifts received in the mail this morning (January 2)  we have at last reached what seemed an unlikely reality – that we would reach the match challenge goal that was extended to us in October. 

In closing, I want to reiterate what I wrote just a few days ago when it appeared that we might fall short of the match as it bears repeating!

We thank the extender of the match challenge, an anonymous donor, who made what we found to be a rather difficult challenge.  Which was:

He and his wife would match any gift from anyone who had never given before or those hadn’t given to this ministry since 2013. 

Well, we knew that it wasn’t going to be easy.  And, it wasn’t.   But, that’s okay! 

This match wasn’t about just matching any and all gifts, but rather about finding new friends, new supporters, or calling out to those who hadn’t seen fit to give for a long time.

This challenge put us in a position of trying harder than ever before to see if in fact we could reach numbers of people beyond our faithful supporters!  

So we have done what we could do.  (1) We sent out letters to those in our data base that hadn’t given, asking for them to once again stand with us financially.  (2) We posted the match challenge request on our Facebook and our website at americandecency.org, and (3) we sent way more emails asking for financial support which isn’t our regular practice. 

Lastly, though we struggled with making the challenge, that doesn’t mean that year end giving was weak, because it wasn’t.  Our year end giving has been very strong!  In fact, it will prove to be one of the best months of support that we have ever had in 27 years of ministry. 

Dear friends:  So on behalf of the American Decency board, staff, and my wife Jan and I, I just want to say thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you who have helped make this ministry possible, in the past, in the present and who have already pledged to stand with us in the future! 

God bless you each one! 

We have reached our goal.  God has shown Himself strong once again in our weakness!

To God be the Glory for what He has done in the lives of those whom He has saved!  We count ourselves blessed that we are in that number! 

 

 Visit us at AmericanDecency.org

To support our efforts please click here or mail your gift to American Decency Association (ADA), PO Box 202, Fremont, MI 49412.  

American Decency Association is a member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.
 

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