The Best Worst Fund Drive Ever

Although the analogy does not fit exactly, I am reminded of the Herdman children in The Best Christmas Pagent Ever. In that book, a church Christmas pagent is taken over by some rag-tag unruly children and in the process the children's less than perfect performance and appearance shed light on the humility that must have been felt so keenly that first Christmas day. A radio station fundraiser is not as endearing as a children's Christmas pagent, but maybe I will be understood.

It was truly the worst fund drive we've ever had. On day one, we peeked timidly out the window at the gray sky. The internet weather radar showed storm clouds lining up to pass directly over the transmitter site. Each storm that passed by knocked the station off the air.

When day two dawned bright and sunny, we were more optimistic. But early in the afternoon, the signal suddenly faded away. The problem was traced to the ISDN phone line that connects the studio to the transmitter. It has a phone number just like a regular phone line...a phone number that the phone company changed - suddenly and without warning and, after seemingly endless calls from the phone company, requiring Rob to go to the transmitter site at midnight and finally sliding into bed after 4am.

Since Rob had only been asleep 2 hours, I went in to start the day, and even though I forgot the alarm's code and set it off (twice), day three started off right. The station shares an antenna with another station that had been off the air due to technical problems. We all expressed thankfulness that their situation proves, it could be worse! The other station finished the repair and switched on their transmitter. The boost of power revealed an overheating transmission line, melting the plastic cover and burning "red hot" underneath. Since we share this transmission line, we were suddenly broadcasting dead air. Rob called his friend Mike to go to the transmitter site with him to check it out. Mike had no where to leave his three small children(5, 2, and 8 months), so he dropped them off at the station and we transformed the front room into a makeshift day care center. When Rob returned, he explained that he had turned down the power from 50,000 watts, to 4,000 watts to protect the line.

At the same time it was somehow the best fund drive ever. Each day brought faithful volunteers with enthusiastic attitudes, eager to help find funding for The Call. In spite of the low power and frequent dead air, we secured 44% of the goal in pledges - which is 4% higher than ever before. The fund drive was better organized, less stressful, more fun, and cleaner than any other.

Each of the days could have ended the fund drive, each one could have left us so discouraged as to quit, but we did not quit. In fact, somehow each obstacle seemed to buoy us on. The three problems were completely unconnected. Was it spiritual warfare? It seemed like they were specifically designed to discourage us. Funny, I was encouraged when the week was through.

(Note: to make up for the dead air times we are planning to extend the fund drive into next week.)