What would you do with $100

So, my first few posts have been mostly about my daughter Mary Lyndsey. She is most definitely my strong willed child. She is alot like me and I'm fairly certain that God put her into my life to teach me how stubborn and strong willed I am. Independence and control issues are big for her and me.

My other child however, is my compliant, easy going child - Spencer. Aside from the whole epilepsy challenge, he is so easy to parent. He has great spiritual insight even at his young age. One time I asked him where he learned so much about God (of course hoping he would say from me) and he said that the angels told him in heaven before God sent him back to us. (That is a story for another day) He has got to be the most positive, optimistic child I know. If you ask him about anything he always says "it was awesome."

Today he brought home some of his first graded papers from school this year. One of the writing assignments from class was "At last, I have saved 100 dollars! I am going to..." I thought to myself, if I save $100 I'm going to the mall... but not him. Here is his answer - "I'm going to give it to the poor and the hunger. And also to the church so they can send it to mishanaryes all around the world and also to my friends." I guess this shouldn't surprise me. Especially after the goats.

Let me explain.
A little over a year ago, after Spencer's birthday, I asked him what he wanted to buy with his birthday money. He answered "a goat." Well, as you can imagine I was a little taken aback and wondered what in the world he was talking about. Was there some new interactive stuffed animal I hadn't seen the commercial for. Upon further prodding, I discovered that in AWANA they were having a contest between the boys and the girls to see who could raise the most money for a missionary family in Croatia (The Belles) to buy goats. They were giving them to needy families and teaching them how to use them to supplement their income with milk and cheese etc.

He had decided that he wanted to give all of his birthday money ($50) to buy a goat. Furthermore, he wanted to have enough money to buy a goat for the Belle's all by himself, so needed approximately $25 more dollars. Thus, his quest began. He started to ask everyone in our family for money to buy goats. And of course, everyone gave it to him. Once he realized that people were responding, he decided he wanted to buy 2 goats and at my mom and dad's 25th anniversary party he proceeded to ask everyone there to give money toward the goats. (Now this is in a small rural town in SC where many of the people in attendance are farmers and several of them told him they would just give him a goat if he really wanted one).

One day we were in Target shopping. I was distracted by something and when I turned around he was talking to a lady who was pulling out a $20 bill and handing it to him. I was at first mortified and ran over to apologize thinking that my child had just asked a complete stranger for money to buy some new video game I had refused to purchase... but the lady insisted that he take the money and explained that she was happy to help buy a goat!

When all was said and done, he raised over $250 for goats and needless to say, the boys won the Awana contest. Later that year, he got to meet the Belles when they came to our church to speak about their program. And... he got to see pictures of the goats.