natalie’s blog

The Lord has been merciful to Wichita and the surrounding community and has blessed our efforts by turning out a strong “N0 Casinos” vote today in Sedgwick County! (NO: 56% YES: 43%) The “NO Slots” vote was not as strong, but we still won by about 340 votes. (View results here.) I just got off the phone with my good friend, Jennie, founder of Moms Against Casinos, and we are rejoicing at God’s goodness!

I must share an amazing story with you. About two weeks ago Jennie and I were discussing things that still needed to be done. Her main desire at that point was to acquire radio ad space. Each spot she wanted would reach approximately 4,000 listeners within the target group for the vote on this particular issue. However, we had no funding to pursue this project. She was looking into placing some additional billboards as well. But again, no money.

The following evening I received a phone call from a lady inquiring as to how much a billboard would cost. She was interested in making a donation and was curious to know some of the specific costs. I didn’t know the specific amounts, but shared some of our other budgeted numbers with her and told her I would get the other info for her. It was no big deal, she said. She was just curious. A quick call to Jennie turned up some specifics - large, high traffic billboards were $1,600 each and smaller, low-traffic ones were $600 each. I called the lady back with the information and she expressed surprise that the numbers were so high. She hadn’t realized it was so expensive to run a campaign like this. I concurred. She made arrangements to drop the check by my house the following day.

I had been out of town for the week, but as soon as I arrived home (about 9:30 the following evening), I saw the envelope she left me. Enclosed was a lovely card with the verse Jeremiah 33:3 “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.” Inside were several checks made out to Moms Against Casinos. I added all the check totals…several times. I couldn’t believe how much it was. I had never imagined that it would be such a large donation! The total…$6,432! Of course I had to call Jennie immediately and let her know. The conversation went like this:

Me: “Jennie, are you sitting down?”
Jennie: “No, why? What? What? What’s going on?”
Me: “Just sit down. You’re not going to believe this. I just got home and opened the envelope from the lady I told you about yesterday. Their family gave us over $6,000.”
Jennie: “What? Are you serious?! Oh, Natalie, that’s incredible!”

Jennie went on to tell me that the Lord had impressed upon her that morning that she should spend the day fasting and praying. She really wanted to go ahead with the radio ads, but until she had the money to cover the current bills for printing of literature and renting billboard space, she couldn’t pursue anything else. Time was running out and air time was quickly being claimed by the other side. Everything in her wanted to just place the ads in faith that the Lord would provide. But she had to wait. She had to know if this was truly of the Lord. She asked Him to confirm that what she was doing was His will by providing the necessary funding to meet the current expenses so she could go ahead with the radio ad space. Earlier in the day she had received $1,000 from another family and now this generous gift. The two gifts combined were enough to cover all the current expenses. He had waited until 9:30 that night to let her hear the news, but the Lord had answered her prayers and she had clear direction to secure the radio ad space the following day.

In these final couple of weeks, we have received several other large donations and numerous smaller donations that have all been used to fight this battle. Every dollar has counted and every drop of energy and minute of time has been worth it. From a 40-point lead in favor of the casino several months ago to a solid victory today, we are confident that the hand of God has wrought us this victory and we give Him all the glory!

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