Fundraising at VG's

As part of the preparations for our trip to Haiti, our family has been fundraising with our team. Our current fundraiser involves VG’s grocery stores. When people shop at VG’s they earn community share points that they can share with a charity, like our team. Members of our team have been standing outside these stores with signs about our trip. When people ask, we can talk with them about our fundraiser. If they’re interested, they can allow us to clip the Community Share Points off their receipts. They earn 1 point for every dollar they spend, and we earn 1 penny for every point we receive.

So last week, our family went to one of the VG’s stores in our area.

  Sitting in the front of the store.

We weren’t sure what to expect since this was our first time. But things went quite well! We started around 5:00 p.m. and there were lots of people coming and going from the store. After about an hour, we pulled out the dinner we had packed and ate.

Around 6:00 p.m., things started clouding up. The temperature had been in the 80’s all day, and the humidity was high. We saw storm clouds rolling in and noticed a few lightning strikes. We couldn’t hear any thunder, so we decided to stay and hoped the storm would remain to the south of us.

  The storm clouds.

Around 6:45 p.m., the wind picked up. It almost looked like a dust storm was occurring! I guess things had been dry for the past few days, and so the 30-40 mph winds were whipping things all over. It wasn’t raining yet, so we waited outside and debated whether or not we should call it quits.

Right around 7:00 p.m., we decided we should call it a night even though we were supposed to stay until 8:00 p.m. Daddy went to pull the car around so we didn’t have to carry the table far. That was when the torrents came! It started pouring rain, with thunder, lightning, and lots of wind. I picked up our card table to put it in the back and a huge gust of wind nearly swooped it out of my hands! We ran to the car, soaking wet. A glance at the thermometer told us the temperature had dropped down to 64°F. That was a 15-20 degree drop in half an hour!

Even though we had to leave earlier than expected and had the issue of weather, we were all grateful for the experience. That might be hard to imagine, but we looked at it as great training for our trip. While we were sweating in the 80-degree heat, we reminded each other that Haiti will be much hotter. When our plans changed, we remembered that on a missions trip, plans change very often and that we need to be flexible. We were thankful for the funds we raised that night, but even more thankful to have the time together working as a family and preparing for the trip!