It's all George Muller's fault

In September 2010 we began homeschooling. The curriculum we use is called Sonlight. One of the reasons I chose it was because of it's strong emphasis on missionaries and global missions work.  Since we are a multicultural family, we were very excited to study about places all over the world and to learn about how God was working in them.  That fall, one of our Read Aloud books was the biography of George Muller. Now, I had grown up in a Christian home and attended a private Christian College, but for some reason, I couldn't recall anything about him, except from the short from the VeggieTales movie about how the children prayed for food and someone knocked on the door with food for them. 

Well, this book might well have changed my life. (See- homeschooling is not just teaching the kids...)  In summary, for those who haven't heard the whole story: George Muller was a minister who became deeply moved to help the orphans in Bristol, England and began several orphanages and schools for them. He never asked people for money- he only prayed that God would provide whenever there was a need. Buildings, furniture, money, food, you name it- he prayed for it.  It is such an uplifting testimony of miracle after miracle.  At the time I read the book, God had already been dropping messages about adoption and orphans.  And I didn't go looking for this book- it was scheduled into our curriculum. This book broke me for orphans and for stepping out and living by faith.

When we started our adoption journey, we felt like God was telling us to have George Muller's faith.  Let's not ask for money- God knows our needs and He will provide. So far, we haven't asked anyone directly for money and He has provided.   But this has been very hard. We have sold things and held some small fundraisers- so we didn't ask directly for people to just open up their wallets.  But we're starting to feel the tug of urgency. Ok, so do we write a letter asking people directly to give and trust God to move people or should we continue to only pray and depend on God to send the money?  I want to be careful that I don't become self-righteous, I want to have a pure heart. But I want to have unwavering faith and trust in God's power.  Do I not believe that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills? Do I not believe that He will fulfill His promise to give Maria a family?  But what if He wants me to do everything I can so that He can then do the rest? 

So, this is my dilemma. Why I stay up at night and think and pray and negotiate and pray and plan and pray.  One of our goals is to bring awareness to our church so they can be passionate about caring for orphans.  We started an Orphan Care, Foster and Adoption Ministry last fall and God is giving us a vision. Our first opportunity is coming up SOON! We are very excited to be able to do the coffee/food sales between the Sunday church services on May 22 and 29.  We also will be holding a Parent's Night Out Fundraiser on May 28.  We will be getting the orphan's message out to the church body and hopefully also gain some new prayer warriors!

But I still don't feel like God is blessing my letter sending. I will keep praying and seeking Him. I really want to be a vessel for Him to use and man, does this vessel sometimes feel soooo fragile.