Toppling Goliath

There was despair in the Christmas Warriors chat room yesterday morning.

Thirty-seven children still had not reached their $1,000 Angel Tree goal.

There were no big donors waiting in the wings with big checks to save the day.

We were a bunch of tired, battle-weary and empty-pocketed Warriors whose only job description was that we all cared deeply about a bunch of castaway kids.

We had given it our all for weeks and weeks, but THIRTY-SEVEN children were still on the wrong side of the $1,000 wall.

We still needed to raise thousands of dollars if we were going to get them all over that wall.

How in the world?

We were a group of little Davids, armed with nothing but a few pebbles to cast at a mighty foe.

But God was on our side.

And our purpose was true and right: To stand in the gap for the voiceless ones.  To share with the world the fact that these forgotten orphans have value.  To defend their right to live, and to have a life that's worth living.

And so we rallied.  Although we were tired and discouraged, we got up, dusted ourselves off and went back to work.  We determined in our hearts that we were going to show these precious babes to the world one last time before the Angel Tree was over.  Whether or not they all made it over the wall, we were at least going to show the world their pictures and tell their sad stories one last time.

So we slammed the internet with their faces.  Over and over and over we put their faces out.  And with God on OUR side - people began to SEE the children.  EVERY SINGLE ONE of them.

And ALL THIRTY-SEVEN began to move towards the wall.

The half hour updates on the Angel Tree website verified the fruit of our labor.

Step by step.  Inch by inch.

Every single one of them was moving toward that wall.

So many people were responding that the Reece's Rainbow website went down.

Panic set in as we prayed for it to come back on-line.

Most of the donations were small ones of $5, $10 or $20 each, representing hundreds, thousands of people out there who were seeing the babies and responding in love. 

It was beautiful to behold. When the first babe finally jumped the wall after hours of labor, we rejoiced.  Then another jumped.  And another.  By early afternoon five babies had jumped. There were still 32 left, but all of them had moved closer to the wall.

And then a donor stepped forward with a challenge: he or she would pull the BOTTOM FIVE babes over the wall if we could get another TEN babes over the wall first.

We were a mess.  Strategy went out the window.  We just started hollering and yelling even louder.

If we had been strategy-minded, we would have told people to stop donating to the bottom five, because they were already guaranteed to make it over the wall.

Thankfully, we were a bunch of Hysterical Warriors who cared little about strategy and cared everything about all 32 babes who we refused to leave behind.

So it went on as before, with every single child advancing.  The bottom five kept swapping places with the others.  It was a cacophony of craziness. A few hours later, the first child jumped.  Screaming ensued.  A half hour later, another followed.  The Warriors chat room was going hysterical.

So many people were jumping on the website to donate that the servers were struggling to keep up.

Then we had only 23 babies left.  Only one more to go, and then the bottom five would go too.

That would leave 17 babes. 

What happened next was absolutely beyond words.

Around 6:30 p.m.,  Number 22 jumped the wall.

In the half hour from 6:30 to 7:00, Michelle from RR set to work distributing our big donor's money to pull the bottom five over the wall as promised.  But within that same half hour, the donations for all the babes poured in like water over a broken dam. They were jumping the wall so fast that we couldn't keep up with them all.  It was wild beyond belief.

At 7:00 pm, when the site refreshed and everyone expected to see 17 babes left on the wrong side of the wall, there were instead only ELEVEN left.

ELEVEN!

I was in complete and utter shock and awe at what God had accomplished through us.  Looking at those eleven remaining babies, I knew that we had won.  I knew then that we would get them all over that wall.

  

The mighty Reece's Rainbow Warriors were not going to leave those last Eleven behind.

A bunch of pebbles with a Mighty God makes for victory every single time!!

And, thank the Lord, I was right.  Within another hour or so, they all had made it.  All Thirty Seven Babies.

Through the Angel Tree, those poor lost babies got their chance to speak to hearts all over the world-- both in the world across the ocean, where people often throw their 'broken' children away, and in our world on this side of the ocean, where we often eliminate them before they can even take their first breath.

The Holy Spirit moved in the hearts of everyone who saw those poor babies' pictures yesterday.

Yesterday the Lord of Hosts made it clear to all that these babes are precious, that they are worthy of His attention, and that they are on HIS heart.


And yesterday, for a few hours, the world listened to the cries of the many children whom it has hidden away and forgotten.

THANK YOU TO ALL WHO LISTENED.  THANK YOU.