Blessings for Water - My Charity:Water Campaign Story

It was earlier this year that my path began to branch into something different. Through a few rough patches this summer  and needing to keep my mind occupied, I began to watch a lot of Ted talks and read a tons of blogs. Most of the talks that I enjoy watching have to so with how to change the world. One of the ones that caught my eye was the one by Simon Sinek on the Golden Circle and the ideas that people don't buy what we do, but why we do it. I then went on to discover Gary Vaynerchuck where I learned the importance in adding value to your audience before asking them anything.  From T4T and Brene Brown I learned about the power of being vulnerable in sharing your story. 

All this information was being poured over me and I wanted to figure out how to put it all to use. I went around evangelizing how this could relate to customer service, or to marketing, or to sharing Jesus. The idea was that by doing a few of these ideas you could make a bigger impact in the world. I've always been about doing good and inspiring others to do the same. 

I began meeting with my friend, Martin Yan. Martin and I began to encourage each other with these grand ideas that we had been learning. We both began to do things in our company that could add value to our customers that had not been there already. For me it is customer service and blogging about how our customers could better serve their customers. As we spent time tossing inspiring blog posts and videos to each other during the week, one that he sent to me was a keynote from a marketing conference that he had attended. It was about this guy who had, in his life, been convicted to help provide clean water to everyone in the world. He created an organization called Charity:Water.

So, I immediately went out and donated thousands of dollars to his cause? Absolutely not. My first thought was, "There are plenty of people doing this. I don't need to."  Martin told me that he would be participating in the Giving Up Your Birthday campaign and asking his friends to donate his age in dollars to Charity Water.  I was pretty sure that I wouldn't give up mine because there was no way an introverted guy like me could raise much money.

As I thought about it more, I came to the realization that this would be the perfect way for me to tell my story. Charity Water could provide me the opportunity to share what God has done in my life as well as invite others to help make a difference. 

It was then decided that I would start my campaign. 

My goals were twofold. The first was to work hard to tell my story to as many people as possible. The second was to invite everyone to join me in making a difference for good in this world. 

Here are the steps I took to attempt to achieve this goal:

1. Create a campaign where I shared my story, my purpose, our (my friends, my family and myself) purpose, and an invitation. The invitation was literally a tiny part of everything else.

2. Set a high goal that I probably could not meet.

3. Create a good note to send to all of my friends of how they have impacted my life and invite to view my story

4. Personalize each message that I sent to each person of how they have personally touched my life

5. For my birthday I bought 108 donuts for my coworkers and invited them to read my story

6. Every person that asked about my birthday, I used that opportunity to share about charity water.

7. I normally turn off my wall for my birthday because I think it's an impersonal way of saying "Happy Birthday".  This time, every person that wrote 'Happy Birthday' on my wall got a personal message of how they have been a blessing to my life and then an invitation to check out my story or to thank them for donating and encourage them to pledge their birthdays.  I received over 70 wall posts, so I spent most of my birthday evening responding to them.

In every interaction I had,  rarely asked for them to donate, I only asked them to read my story.  My hope was that them knowing the value that they added to my life with the value that I hopefully added to their life would cause a kind of engagement that would not only encourage them to give, but would exhort them to join into having the same desire to change the world. 

In 8 days I was able to raise $3,330 from 71 different friends and family members

All this, for what?  Raising money is never the end goal. I believe that true value is if I can inspire others to do good. I believe that it is more valuable for me to inspire 10 people to give up their birthdays for clean water. They would not only raise more money than I could, but they could also inspire others to do the same and a cascade movement can happen. 

In the end I’m not about raising money, I’m about inspiring the masses to care.

This is my Charity:Water story. 

Your Trophy Case

When I purchased my house a few rooms had built in shelves.  The room that I decided to inhabit had one shelf that spans about half the length of the room.  I ended up using that shelf to throw up things that I would want to occasionally look at from time to time.  As I began doing different physical events, all of the medals I got after crossing that finish line would end up hanging from that shelf.  Through the 6 years that I've lived there, this shelf has become pretty full.  I looked at it the other day and realized that it has basically become my trophy shelf.  There are medals hanging down from it that remind me of different events that I've done how I had accomplished something difficult physically.  Though these "trophies" are from me crossing the finish line, they are not the most valuable trophies on my shelf.  A majority of this shelf is filled with cards and letters from people who have been in my life.  Most of them are testimonies of what kind of impact I have been in their lives or encouragements to me to continue pursuing greatness.

When you think about your trophy case, what do you have displayed?  Is it your job or career, your kids’ accomplishments, your stock portfolio or bank account, your grades, your major, your status in different social groups?  Or is your trophy case full of lives that you have impacted for good.  It should be full of ways that you have tried to make a difference in this world and to be a positive force of change.

Finding the Perfect Fit

I have never been good at puzzles.  From the time I was young I never had the patience to match each piece together to create the big picture.  Often, in frustration I would resort to trying to force pieces together.  Sometimes if the two pieces were part of a sky or something of a solid color, it seemed like it would be fine in the end.  I learned that in order to get the puzzle to look the best, each piece need to find where it fit so that when they're all in place and you step back, you can see what the puzzle was intended to look like.
Interestingly enough, my life has looked similar to this situation.  I sometimes try so hard to force myself to fit into a section of the puzzle.  This can be in a social group, an area of ministry or even at work.  I do this because it is where I believe I can be the most effective.  When I find that I am forcing myself into a portion of the puzzle that I do not belong to it can be easy for me to give up, but I remember that the one in charge of the puzzle is putting everything together.  He is the Lord and in His time he will place me exactly where I am supposed to be.  Once He does that, the picture is complete and it is beautiful.  Allow the Lord to place you in the place where you become a part of the picture that He is trying to create through His church.

The Ministry of Availability

I was asked by my pastor to share about the College Ministry that I am helping lead.  Basically he wanted me to share for 3 to 5 minutes about what we’re all about and ways that people can get involved.  When I began to think about it, I could list out a few tasks that we do such as our meeting once a month and the small group that has formed, but it didn’t seem to convey what we are attempting to accomplish.  

As I thought about it, I came up what type of ministry we do.  We do the ministry of availability.  Most of the things we do create a space for our college students to grow in an unofficial way.  Our ministries are unconventional ones.  We have ministry through texts checking up weekly or daily with our students.  We spend time meeting our students where they are at.  We do campus visits for students that are not in the immediate area.  We will go and encourage our students who are involved in on-campus ministries by visiting their groups and participating with them.  We will go on campus with our students and eat dinner with them in the commons or take them off campus to get away for a little bit.  We will sit with them and study.  In the midst of this we get the opportunity to see how the Lord is leading them and have great opportunities to have solid spiritual conversations.  When we are able to meet one on one with students we have opportunities to open the bible and share scripture.  It is often that on a Sunday I will have the week completely open.  At the end of the week I look back and may have had one evening open.

I simply want God to send me to whom he will send me to.  As Isaiah 6:8 says:

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”

The ministry of availability is based on being available and willing to meet the students where they are at.  Though we are not often a large group, we do our best being resources to help our students get involved in different and continue to grow in their spiritual walks in and in maturity.

My Shape

10 years ago I took a step of faith and headed down to Argentina for 6 weeks on a short term missions trip. Little did I know that this would be a trip that would shape my life going forward. From that point of my life I developed a heart for the nations, put myself on a track to meet amazing people from all over the world, some of whom are the people I turn to in my deepest time of need, gave me a deep appreciation and love for the Latin American culture and Spanish, lead me to have a heart for the inner city and having meaningful, intentional relationships.

Are you someone who believes that Short Term Missions does not have high value? I would not be the person I am today if I hadn’t taken that small step. Any of the encouragements I’ve said and ministries I have been involved with would not have happened. I would not be able to live comfortably in uncomfortability and my life would have less impact on this world.

It all started with 1 decision to go. What’s God calling you to do? Are you willing to make that small step today so that it can shape you who will be in 10 years?