$1,000 Challenge laid down by our 8 year old

A few nights ago my wife and I were watching a movie late at night when my 8 year old son, Luke came downstairs. My first reaction was a stern "get in bed!" Then Luke, proceeded to tell us that as he was lying in bed that he felt God tell him to raise $1000 for Project Rescue & Africa's Hope. Immediately my demeanor changed (had that eye contact/smile thing going on with Jenelle) and we discussed how to raise $1,000. He suggested to sell some of his books, toys, clothes, holding a garage sale, etc... He then thought about shooting a video to put on youtube and facebook which would be "cool"- yeah, he is 8 years old. (the video is coming this weekend) I suggested he get a matching gift, so dollars could be matched. He's working with us and some others on making this happen. We asked him (knowing the answer) what the money would be used for. This is what he said in his own words, "Project Rescue helps get people out of human trafficking and slavery, over in India and all over the world. There are bad people who take kids and do bad things to them. I want to help the kids be safe and rescue them. Africa's Hope is helping pastors get Bibles and books to tell people about Jesus. They don't have any supplies because they are poor, so I'm gonna help them." WOW!!!! So, my 8 year old son, just laid down awesomeness. Kind of hard to get mad about being up late at night when he comes up with that. All this comes as he is watching his pastor, John Miller, challenge the church kids to give to missions. We're on board to contribute and help him earn this $1,000. Being the little business minded-mission minded kid that he is, we told him the importance of working for it and then getting people to catch his vision. We told him if God gave him the vision and idea, then we will be of help and teach him the ways to go about raising and earning this money to help others. These websites give you more info on these phenomenal ministries he is trying to help:
www.projectrescue.com
www.africashope.org

Here is how you can get involved and help Luke's vision come to fruition:

Make Checks Payable to: ECC or (Evergreen Christian Community)
memo line: Project Rescue & Africa's Hope
send to:
Attn: Phil Wilson
1000 Black Lake Blvd
Olympia, WA 98502
*this is a gift to a non-profit and will be recorded as that for your tax purposes.
Any monies that come in will be turned by me, so I can help Luke track outside gifts. Luke is currently working on securing and trying to raise a matching gift(s) totaling $500.

All I know is when this gets to a point where he is unleashed in his endeavors to help people, it will be great to watch from our perspective. Thanks kid for challenging us to do more and to think big. Somehow I think this challenge is bigger than just me, but for a lot of people reading and hearing his vision.

THE MISSIONS-MINDED MIND of a 7 year old

This week my 7 year old son(that is the cool dude in the pic), decided he would get 19 extra buddy barrels. Buddy barrels are these yellow little plastic barrels that are used to collect money for missionaries around the world. Luke decided since he already has 5 himself, that he should make sure that every kid in his school class had one. So, he asked his teacher if he could give a little presentation on what buddy barrels were, and what they were used for. (His little creative business mind makes me wonder what he will do with his life.) He then challenged all his friends to get lose change and dollar bills and fill the barrels, so he could take them to church and make sure the missionaries get them. So, today before school he got his box that will hold all the buddy barrels from his calss and took it in, ready to go see if any kids took up his challenge. When he gets his mind behind something, he is hard to bump off track. That may be a good thing. Last year alone he gave over $350 to missions as a 6 year old. I'm excited to see what happens this year. The missions mind he has, amazes me and I am wondering what creative idea comes next for him to give to missions. All I know, is that if you know him, he is not afraid to ask if you for money for missions. Be forewarned.