God is Good!

I’m sitting here working on financials.  Not mine, mind you… I worked on those yesterday and cried nearly the whole time.

I’m actually working on the youth group financials.  We’re a small church.  We also have a small youth group, although it’s growing.  A year ago, the check book was signed over to me and contained within was $14.82.

That’s all.

Just $14.82.

There was no activity from March until August when we deposited enough collected to go on a trip and there has been limited activity and limited funds ever since.

However.

Today we finished Upward Basketball and the youth runs the concessions and all proceeds go to the youth group.  We started something different this year in that we take the total numbers of hours worked per student and the total profit and come up with an hourly wage.  We then apply that to the hours that they work and voila!  We know how much goes into their personal accounts to be spent on events and trips.  If you don’t work, the church doesn’t give you any money to go.  It’s just that simple.  (Please know, we do have scholarships and stuff.) But I love this because the teens are actually learning how the real world works.

You clock in and you only get paid what you earned.  there are no free rides.  It’s a great learning lesson.

But I was able to complete account statements today since I now know the final profits of Upward, the 2 pancake breakfasts that we had and the Valentine’s Day dinner and I’m pleased to report that in just two months time we netted a profit of over $1,100.  This is in addition to the money that we get from the church and a few other donations/fundraisers that we have coming up and the kids have something to show for their efforts.

I love it.

Anywho, I never in a million years thought that we would net this much.  I was banking on $500 for this time frame and for the kids to earn about $2 per hour, but they made about $5 an hour and most everyone who worked has their trip paid for.

God is good!

(for not only providing money but a person who would help me, who busted her tail, and gave her all to help me.  I learned so much from her and honestly, could never have done this without her.  And it cracks me up because I’ve heard on more than one occassion that she could never work with the teens and she just spent the last 8 Saturdays working with the teens.  Heh.  Yes, God is good.)

Until next time…