Holy Week--when God did the unthinkable

An amazing week.  It has only been two weeks since my last post, but so much has happened I hardly know where to begin.  My most overriding emotion is gratitude--to many of you who have faithfully prayed, to our Board and good friends who have worked hard, and most importantly to God for His faithfulness.  April 1 is the deadline to have our completed application in to the Georgia Dept. of Education to be a school eligible to accept SB10 scholarship recipients.  One of the biggest challenges to this application was getting the location for our school--documented by a Certificate of Occupancy and a signed lease.  The CO was quite challenging as it required several inspections, the installation of a fire alarm system, and the business license.  The tricky thing is that a church is meeting in the same space for the next 3 months and they needed to be approved also.  All this to say--it is done!!!  We sent the completed application in yesterday, with 24 hours to spare!

From the beginning we asked God for a place, a staff, and students.  Well, now it is time to start enrolling students, which is also a little challenging since we need to have at least 15, of the 21 total, enrolled by June 1 and we won't have a classroom to show anyone until about July 15th.  So again, we ask your prayers for God to select the 21 children He wants to bring to our school--the ones we can truly help.  The website should be live in about a week, which is about the time the business cards, the tri-fold brochure, the magnetic car signs, and the big wooden yard sign should be ready.

This next week we hope to finalize our 501 c 3 application, sign off on the insurance, and finalize the staff handbook.  We are also finalizing the design for the build-out that needs to be done the first week of July--it is going to look so amazing!  God has done so much in the last three months, and believe me, only He could have accomplished all of this!

But this is Holy Week, the time we stop to remember the incredible love of our Savior and the unthinkable sacrifice He made on our behalf.  I am once again overwhelmed by what that means. I pray that you will find the time in your busy day to pause and remember and to give thanks--not just for the way He daily answers our prayers blesses us beyond measure, but for the fact that He chose to love and forgive us when we were all so unlovable and so unforgivable.  Have a Blessed Easter--we are indeed blessed!

Timing is everything

This week in our Beth Moore Bible study on Esther we are to the point in the story where Queen Esther stands before the king and He extends his scepter allowing her to speak, and to live!   We learned about the importance of her fasting for 3 days before entering the court, but also how odd it was that when she had the chance to reveal her enemy for his evil plot she chose to wait.  There was a long discussion of why she waited, but we came away understanding the importance of timing.  We were reminded that "those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength", but also that those who wait upon the event, or the relationship, or the thing--will lose their strength!  That was profound for me, as I feel I have been waiting for so many things that are out of my control, and it was making me weary.

As I began to change my focus, and wait upon the Lord, trusting that He is in control and He is the God of the details as well as the God of the Dream, my anxiety lessened, and my strength was renewed.  Many things have come together this week and I am more confident that we will achieve the goals and meet the impending deadlines.

Our teacher "A" has worked out the details to join us part time and has a peace about it--Praise God!  We met with landlords and pretty much came to an agreement to lease the space we need.  The required improvements should be completed on time.  We opened a bank account, sent all of the necessary information to our account to complete the compilation report needed, secured our domain (www.mchnf..org), discussed business card design with the printer, assembled the binders to submit for accreditation and application to GA Dept of Ed for Special Needs Scholarship--only a few items to go to complete it.  We have our first Board Meeting scheduled for this week, and will hopefully get an approval from the insurance underwriters.

It is exciting to see so many things come together, in just the right time.  We see God's hand in providing two of the three main things we asked for from the beginning--the staff, the location, and now it is time to begin recruiting the students.  Please continue to pray as we have more important decisions to make and important work to be completed before March 25.  I will try to do better at updating this blog.

Blessings to all