Janet Britton, a school teacher from Andover, Ohio, who has authored for Intervarsity, is accepting responsibility for leading the financial effort on the Widow's Mite prayer shelter. Way back in 1982, when Doug & Penny Lucas left for Uruguay, Janet began writing Penny regularly to encourage and support her. The rest, as they say, is history. She's been a strong booster for Team Expansion ever since. And now, this latest idea of hers is actually rather simple. She says that not every church or group can give $24,000. But their gift is still blessed and honored by God. So she proposed this Widow's Mite Prayer Shelter as a kind of "container" to rally together the gifts from all those folks who couldn't stretch to sponsor a full prayer shelter, but *could* contribute toward one. She is postulating that in the process, they'll get involved in other ways too.
She's asking us to help her by coming up with a rustic-looking bench… like a bench in a shoe cobbler's workshop… to set on the site for this shelter. When tours, prayer walkers, and others pass by it, she's asking us to tell the story of the Widow's Mite with the hopes that it will inspire prayer and hope for the future — not just for a prayer shelter, not only for Emerald Hills, but for Christianity in general… worldwide.
Janet's proposal was specific — that we not construct the shelter until the entire $24,000 has accumulated. She also suggested, in fact, waiting until the entire building was funded, because it's her theory that the Widow's Mite fund will actually be the biggest one of all.
So please pray for Janet. She had already mustered the troops at the Andover Christian Church Youth & Sunday School to take on a 29 partnership. Their goal is to raise an average of $100/week from the youth and Sunday School classes at a church that is excited to hit 300 in attendance. For the Widow's Mite partnership to succeed, she'll need lots of friends… and lots of prayer. But she's aware of that . . . and notwithstanding that, she has told us to ink in this project, which should be an inspiration to us all.