Connecticut Fund Raising Trip

Last night at around 10 PM I got back to Tallahassee after a ten hour travel day. I had been in Connecticut since last Wednesday night to see my family, to visit friends and to fund raise for my ministry with the Navigators. Now I’m back at work and have nearly nothing to do (a tremendous blessing, I assure you). I’m trying to process and digest all that went on during my whirlwind trip. It had its share of highs and lows, not to mention unexpected happenings. I’m trying to decide if it was a success or not. Maybe I’ll let you decide.

Wednesday before I left Florida I got a call from my friend Eric, my old youth pastor in Connecticut, who informed me that he and his family would be getting away from it all this weekend and wouldn’t be able to get together with me. I was disappointed, but from the sound of things they really needed a break and some quality time with the family. And even though he told me that he and his wife Michele be happy to hear about my ministry over the phone when I got back to Florida and even went so far as to say that his family would be supporting me financially I couldn’t help but feel like this was a major setback.

It had been impressed upon all of us at fund raising school to make the most of your trips to other parts of the country, scheduling as many face-to-face appointments as possible. Most of the people I wrote letters to in Connecticut said they’d be attending my group presentation at my church after the service the Sunday I’d be in town. Either that or they told me they would be out of town. In fact, it ended up being that I only had two face-to-face appointments my entire trip, far fewer than I would have liked to have had.

The first of these appointments came bright and early on Thursday with my good friend Josh Kelley. I’ve lost touch with almost all my old Connecticut high school and youth group friends, so I’m truly fortunate that I have a friend from college that moved close to where my parents live. I spent the better part of the day with Josh, since I didn’t have any other appointments and since I wanted our time to be about more than just business. We played cards, watched a couple episodes of Scrubs, got some fabulous calzones from a local Italian place and talked about my ministry. We had a little excitement too. It started to storm while I was there and reports came in that a tornado had been spotted in his town (Josh’s roommate was freaking out). All told it was a great day, probably the best day of the trip.

Friday I had no appointments or commitments made, so it was a very relaxed day. I spent the day with my family. That was probably something I should have scheduled in to my trip anyway, but lucky for me it worked out the way it did. Even though this year I’ll be seeing my parents and my sister Alison at more times than usual (I saw them at my cousin Beka’s wedding back in March and will see them in August at my cousin Ryan’s wedding) I will likely end up spending less time with them this year than any other to date. The four of us went out to dinner as a family that night, which was a lot of fun. I miss being able to have dinner with my family.

My second of two appointments came on Saturday afternoon. This one was with the parents of my sister’s best friend Samantha. You might think that that’s a loose connection but it really isn’t. Sam’s dad and I camped together at Soul Fest in 2004 and 2005. On each of those trips it was me, him, Alison, Sam and a group of high school girls that were the same age as Alison and Sam. So as you can probably imagine her dad and I bonded during those trips. Both of Sam’s parents have taken an active interest in what I’m doing with the Navigators and wanted to hear about my ministry. The three of us talked for well over an hour. I love it when my appointments last a long time. Usually it means the person or people I’m talking to looked at the material I sent them and came up with some solid questions, which was the case with this appointment. I went away from there very encouraged.

I spent the remainder of my Saturday formatting my parents’ crappy one-year-old Dell laptop and reloading everything. It’s amazing how much better a computer can get when you get rid of all the preloaded garbage.

Sunday was an extremely busy day. It started with my presentation at Wethersfield United Methodist Church. This is the church where my parents are members (and, technically, where I’m still on the books as being a member, though I only went there regularly for a year before going to college). I stood up at the beginning of the service and briefly described my ministry with college students. I explained that I’d be giving a longer presentation after the service during the coffee hour. That morning we had a guest preacher, a man originally from the Caribbean now living in New Jersey. He brought a good word. Maybe a little too good. When it came time for my group presentation only three couples showed up. I wrote letters to twenty couples. Now, granted, not all of them were in church on Sunday, but many of them were. I was supremely disappointed and hurt by the lack of attendance. I went ahead with the presentation for the people who came. All three couples seemed very interested and genuinely supportive of what I’m doing.

I don’t know what was to blame for the poor attendance of my presentation. Maybe people heard all they needed to hear when I spoke at the beginning of the service. Maybe they wanted to talk to our guest speaker more than me. Maybe they had a hard time wanting to support a guy ministering to Florida college students instead of students in Connecticut. I have to say I was and continue to be shocked, simply because I know that that church believes in missions work and in supporting the missions of its members. I know attendance isn’t everything, and that God could and probably still will knock my socks off with how that church blesses my ministry. But I guess I just came in with really high expectations, having written so many people and having followed up many of those letters with phone calls personally inviting people to the presentation.

I spent the rest of the afternoon in a real funk. It was the lowest I’ve felt since starting my fund raising. I felt like I had blown it. This was my big trip to Connecticut where I was supposed to network with a dozen or more families and I had done so little. It took a real act of God to get me to attend church with Josh that night, something I’d agreed to do a couple of weeks ago. He goes to a pentecostal church, which isn’t exactly my flavor of worship, but nonetheless I really liked it. I got to meet Josh’s new girlfriend Lauren who seems really sweet. I met a lot of people who were excited about my ministry. Josh kept trying to hint to his friends that they should give me money, but none took the bait.

As I mentioned earlier, Monday was a travel day that wouldn’t end. I flew out of Hartford a little after noon and arrived in D.C. about an hour later. Unfortunately my flight out of Washington was delayed by close to two hours. I was flying into Jacksonville, so even when I finally did finish flying I was still more than two hours away from home. I made it back to Château Special with just enough gas to get to work in the morning and just enough energy to crash into my bed.

So, was the trip a success? Who knows. On the plane ride back I started reading a book by Shane Claibourne called The Irresistable Revolution. In it he makes a passing comment that ministry, and life in general, isn’t about how successful we are; it’s about whether or not we are faithful. I believe I was faithful to my trip’s purpose. I made appointments, I networked with people, I gave a group presentation to my church. I can’t control all the details, but I can remain faithful on my end. Now I have to hope and pray that my efforts here and elsewhere will be enough and that God will make up the difference.