~Misselainious~

Yes, I do know how to spell miscellaneous. See? Miscellaneous. Miscellaneous. Miscellaneous. Miscell...okay, you get the point. Misselainious is something special.

Elaini Garfield had a dream. A dream to go on a mission trip to India. But at 16 she became plagued with an awful skin disease. So, she decided, even if I can't go to India, I can still help them. So she did. (See pictures here) For one hundred days, Elaini wore one black dress to raise money for Indian orphans. But she didn't just wear it. Everyday she designed new and ingenious outfits using that black dress. Her goal? 50,000 dollars.

Sounds hard, right? That's what some of my friends and I thought. So we decided to organize a sale and donate all proceeds to Elaini.

We asked for donated materials to sell. We asked for volunteers. We arranged to borrow a church parking lot. We did a lot. And it was a lot of work!

But it was amazing. We had so much stuff I couldn't believe it! Like a room full. We had 21 kids help, plus a bunch of parents to provide "adult supervision." (Which meant sitting in the shade talking.)

We made $900. Yippee!

Really, this might not seem like much to you, but to us it was awesome. A huge team effort that had a great impact. $5 feeds an orphan for a month! It also took us down a bit in our level of cynicism. We had people that were running late and still took the time to stop by and donate for the orphans. Even when everything was free at the end of the sale, we still had people give donations. People. Are. Not. Animals. That's something we Creationists understand. But sometimes it's hard to remember, when you see abortion and 9/11 and people who seem to merely live to satisfy their base cravings. This was a real eye-opener, and I don't think just for me.

Anyway, Elaini is still taking donations even though the 100 days are over. She still wants to reach her $50,000 goal. (She only has like $32,000) Go ahead. Feed an orphan with 5 dollars. That's only like 1 Starbucks.

Please.

"Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world."
~James 1:27