What is my Not-for-Profit going to be!

Good evening from the state of Nebraska. It has been rainy so was a great day for making 2 pumpkin pies. My son had used some pumpkins for target practice last fall. With all of the rain we had in the spring one of the seeds decided to sprout so now we have 2 pumpkins one of which I cut up and baked yesterday. Received a gallon of pulp from that pumpkin and of course hubby thought he needed a pie. So a pie he will get tonight.

Being a mom and grandma the above is part of my legacy, but as I have done in the first two posts, I would like to continue bringing you up to date with what I am working on for my not-for-profit legacy.

We will go back to Sept. 2007. If you haven't been able to tell the last half of the year, I was very distraught over what in the world I would be doing for a legacy. If "this farmwife" could even do anything! I was a total wreck. If that wasn't enough I was also on the mission board of our church.

September was the month for our Mission Conference. At the first of the year I had suggested that we invite some missionaries from California to come and speak. The missionaries were people that Eunice (a friend) and I had met in 1992 when we went to Russia on a mission trip with Josh McDowell's; "More Than a Carpenter." Dr. Jim and Laurel Carlson was 2 people on that trip. We were in the same group that went to Tallinn, Estonia.

In Tallinn was this beautiful church with a 40 foot steeple. The pastor of the church spoke to our group and mentioned that there was a need for christian radio. The steeple on the church could be used to put the antenna on in place of the KGB antenna that was already there. To make a long story short, Jim and another gentlemen in the group took on the challenge and from there The European Christian Radio Project was born.

Jim a Medical Doctor who had no previous knowledge about the workings of a radio station, and this other gentleman who own a radio station or 2 in the Pennsylvania area decided to make this project theirs. After a few months the gentleman from Penn. decided to bowed out of the project. Jim and Laurel have taken this project and have set up 5 radio stations in Estonia that broadcast across Russia and into many other countries. Now with a big transmitter that they just installed in one of the radio facilities they will be able to broadcast across most of Europe.

We invited Jim and Laurel to come to speak at our mission conference. They stayed in our home. I had the opportunity to question Jim about how he continued with the project without the other gentleman's participation. He shared with me that he just knew that it was the Lord's leading and it was God who would provide. In which he has. He just had a sense of knowing that it was right.

Boy did that ever mess me up. I thought, "I don't know what direction God wants me to go! What is wrong with me?"

The conference was over, the next day Eunice and I drove the Carlson's to Omaha to catch the plane. On the way to Omaha Eunice shared with them what she had been doing and all the time I thought "I do not want to do that. Been there done that, I don't want to do that!" (She was working with children who had severe family problems.)

We got them delivered to the airport and said our good byes and heading home I said to Eunice, " If I tell you something will you not laugh or tell me I can't do it?" She promised me she wouldn't do either. You see, up to this point I had not told anyone about what I was doing. Scared to death someone would say "you idiot what do you think you are doing? How are you going to accomplish that?" I proceeded to tell her my thoughts and asked her if she knew anyone I could talk to about it. She gave me the number of her CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) director.

The next day, at 10 in the morning I started calling the CASA director. She told me I needed to call so and so and that led to another call of someone else and this kept up until about 4 p.m. when I talked to a lady at a nearby hospital. By that time I knew what I did not want!

I finally said to the lady, "what is not out there that is needed." She thought a minute and said "there is nothing for the middle and upper class people." Then my brain was really going and I said "well what if we would have a place for whole families to come in times of stress?" She liked that. (At one time a social worker had said we need respite care for the children whose families are going through stressful times but were unqualified for the state programs.)

The lady also suggested that I call it something like Grandma's Place. 'I was off to the races!' I got busy trying to think of a name because Grandma's Place was all over the Internet and it was a day care. I didn't want to do day care!

So, "That's It, I'm Going to Grandma's!" was born.

Renita Farrall