rebelling against low expectations

Everlasting Hope: 56 Days, 56 Hats, $1,000 for Master’s House

By Elisabeth Sullivan
March 24, 2014
56 comments
E

Everlasting Hope is a group that crochets hats to raise money for the Master’s House (see picture below), an orphanage being built in Uyo, Nigeria by MCCF International. (For right now, 50% of the profit we make goes to the Master’s Home.) Our goal is to raise at least $1,000.

the_masters_house_nigeria

We post different hats and crochet projects we are working on. We also have an online store called Hope Eternal Enterprises (HEE) where our hats are available for purchase. HEE got 38 views three days after it was published and Everlasting Hope has gotten over 560 page views! We were really excited!

Back in December, I gave all the profit I made to the orphanage in honor of Christmas. A week after I sent it to the orphanage, I looked in my wallet for money to buy bunny food (you would not believe how much food my rabbit eats!) and it was empty except for a $5 bill. I now owed my mom $42 for bunny food and yarn.

I questioned whether I should have put that much of my money into the Master’s House and I prayed to God for financial help. A couple of days later, I got an order for over 15 hats! I thanked God with all of my heart. That was a kind of sign to me that God was blessing what I was doing.

What inspired me:

The book Do Hard Things is what inspired me to get moving and do some hard things for God.

I wasn’t sure what I should do exactly until I looked at their website and saw a project that Elaini Garfield was doing to raise money for orphans in India. She styled one dress 100 different ways over a period of 100 days, blogging about it along the way. She raised more then $10k more than they initially hoped for, so now she is continuing the blog indefinitely to raise awareness.

cute_crochet_hat

That gave me an idea: instead of styling one dress a different way every day for 100 days, I could crochet one hat a day for 100 days in different styles and sizes to raise money for the Master’s Home.

My dad convinced me to change it closer to 50 days at least for the beginning so I changed it to 56 days (8 weeks). My goal was to raise $1,000 in those 56 days. I made a blog for it called Everlasting Hope, where I post different projects I’ve made lately and other stuff like that.

I was going to start on February 1, but since then, I have been absolutely flooded with orders for all kinds of hats so the 8 Week Challenge was on hold for awhile. LORD willing, I will begin on March 30.

God has definitely blessed us in this work; we’ve been absolutely flooded with orders for Minion hats (see above), frog hats, flower hats, and more. It’s been really awesome seeing God work His will through us. I never dreamed it would grow as big as it is now.

How you can help:

If you would like to help, you can:

  • Pray – We need all the prayers we can get!
  • Donate – You can donate online on the MCCF International website
  • Buy some of our hats – We’ve got all kinds of cute hats we’re making! They are all $10, no matter what size or style you get
  • Spread the word – Tell other people you know about Everlasting Hope.
  • Join us! – If you know how to knit or crochet, you can make things and sell them too! My little sister is going to make 1 headband a day for 56 days along with me.

With God’s help, we know all things are possible. — Matthew 19:26

Share Your Thoughts in the Comment Section!

There are currently __ Comment(s)

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

About the author

Elisabeth Sullivan

is 13-years-old and the second oldest of eight kids. Her favorite things are reading, writing, singing, crocheting, and spending time together with her family. She also loves to do things outside especially in the woods and she and her siblings are homeschooled and live in Indiana.

View all posts

56 comments

  • Hey Elisabeth! This is fantastic! Keep doing what you’re doing. And never forget, there is never a stopping place. Just keep growing and expanding. If God wants you to do this, I believe He will give you absolutely everything you need. And so much more. Just have faith in His wonderful care. 🙂

  • Wow! Nice to see you got an article up! Great job Elisabeth, keep doing this like this for the glory of God!

    God Bless,

    Liam Siegler

  • Your welcome!

    I hope to post an article when I start my project. 🙂

    God Bless!

    Liam Siegler

  • Hey Elisabeth! Didn’t realize you hung out here. 🙂
    This is really awesome, and very inspiring. I hope your project does great, and good luck. Or the Christian way of saying it, good providence. 😀

  • This is bomdigity! haha, but seriously keep up the good work. Three billion reasons, one mission! Love to see God working!:)

  • It may be next year though. I have a long way to go before I get started.

    God Bless,

    Liam Siegler

  • Elisabeth, this is great. You inspire me by your commitment. You give the impression of being professional and being passionate for your work to help these orphans. Most people I know, (and sometimes including me) most of the time wouldn’t be willing to step up and give so generously with such a good attitude.
    We all should not give out of obligation and have a bad attitude but give generously with an attitude of trusting God. You show that God-trusting attitude right here, by your actions. Thank you very much for this inspirational post.

  • Way to go! It’s so great to hear how members of our generation are making a positive difference in this world! I tip my hat to you.

    Signed,

    James W.

  • This is Awesome Elizabeth! I will be praying for you and for the success of this project. I am actually trying to start a similar project right now. We (my younger siblings and I) are crocheting purses to sell in order to raise money for those who live here that desperately need it. 🙂 Again, this is an amazing project. And I will be praying for you! 🙂
    Hayley 😀

  • That’s awesome, Hayley! Crocheting is like the only thing I’m good at, so I want to use it. 🙂 I’ve only made one crocheted purse before and it wasn’t very good. ;D

  • I tried to make one of those once but I ran out of patience because I had a huge pile of projects that I frogged, lol. 😉 So I took it all apart and went to work on an old Captain America hat I was trying to make. 🙂

  • Oh! That was you, Elisabeth! Okay. No worries. Thanks again for your post. I will still pray for you, every day for the full 8 weeks. If you ever get discouraged, remember: You can do all things through Christ, who gives you strength. God bless you and your mission. 🙂

  • Haha! Yeah, it does take a lot of patience, and the material is a lot harder to work with because it’s so stiff, You get a work out from just sitting there crocheting a few rows!!! 😉

  • Amazing! Keep up the good work, I will be sure to keep you in my prayers and tell my mom and sister about this, they will love them!

  • Hello Bradly,

    I know this is of topic but I saw in your profile that you are interested in film. I am also. So I was wondering what type you like, live action, stop motion, computer animation?

    God Bless,

    Liam

  • You should have seen my first one! It looked terrible!! But with lots of practice my bags are looking MUCH better then my first few did! 🙂

  • Hi Siegler,
    I actually prefer stop motion animation currently, but am have done many things with live action, in fact one of my upcoming projects is with live action. I haven’t really done much with computer animation though.
    : )

    Bradly

  • That’s cool! I do stop motion also and am working on a feature length Gospel movie. What project are you working on? I would be very interested.

    Ohh, and you can call me Liam. 🙂

    God Bless,

    Liam

  • Hey Liam,
    I am actually thinking of doing a documentary as my next live action film project. It actually is corresponding with a project that i am considering to start. Colossians 2:8 says Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. It is sad to see how many young people fall prey to the secular ideas being taught everywhere. Along with the documentary i hope to create a blog. Actually …… if you or anyone you know could help me with this project that would be great! Are you making your Gospel movie with legos? That is the main thing i use for stop motion films.

    By the way you can call me Brad : )

    Brad

  • This is an amazing project! I pray it continues becoming a success. Using new talents to help someone else is a great way to start doing hard things. Who knows, one day the orphanage might just be saved because of you and the Everlasting Group.
    I’ll pray for you guys!

  • Hello Brad,

    That’s very interesting! So what are you making a film about? If you could give me just the basic idea of what you are going for that would be great! And what would you need help with? I am not to busy with my project this summer, since I am just voice recording, script writing, and story-boarding.

    Yes my film is being made with Lego’s. There is a whole new generation being brought up in this world. I can tell the culture has some sort of an agenda to take the minds of young people with all these movies and toys they are selling.

    I find it very valuable to reach this age group. By doing so I am going to try to engage them with the story of Christ in Lego’s. Which of course most kids like. Its not that really like playing with them anymore, but I do find this a very great way for outreach.

    Our discussion is not really what this article is intended for, so to continue our discussion I think we should email. I am fine with it just want your permission first. 🙂

    God Bless,

    Liam Siegler

  • All the profit from every hat we sell during the 8 Week Challenge goes to the Master’s Home. But after the 8 Week Challenge, it will be back to 50% of the profits.

  • HI, Elisabeth,
    Keep up the great work. I have been and will be praying for you. God bless!

  • Hey Bradly,

    I just wanted to ask you if you saw my comment below. 🙂

    Thanks!

    God Bless,

    Liam Siegler

  • hey this is really really cool!!! you inspire me 😀 if all of us teens wuld do something,alot would get done!

  • Elizabeth, I’ve been praying. Keep up the awesome work. How many days until you’ve completed your mission?
    Thanks,
    – Trent

  • I totally agree! I just wish that teens could understand that it isn’t always that hard to do something for others. It can be (and I find it usually is) the little things that really make a difference. 🙂
    Not that lots of teens don’t know that, I just mean that a lot of the teens I know act like the grownups can take care of everything while we just sit around.

  • I know! Its so easy just to think we will wait until we are “older”, but reality is that we don’t know how long we have here! Maybe we can’t always do something “big” ourselves, but if we all do small things, then it will turn into something greater! I think the saying “no-one can do everything, but we can all do something, and together we can change the world” is really cool; it so true too!

  • Just two more days! I can’t believe it’s been so long. You inspire me with your commitment. Awesome!

  • Yeah, I can believe it’s been so long because… well, you know. 🙂
    I’m kind of disappointed because instead of raising $1000 like we had originally planned, we have only made about $470 or $480. 😛

  • Well, Elizabeth, if you prayed, trusted God, and gave it your all, God is overjoyed with you and your great achievement right now. So, don’t be disappointed. And money for the orphanage is not all you accomplished here. You also inspired others as well as myself. Thank you!

  • Hey Elizabeth! The project is currently on hold until summer starts, just so I can focus on schoolwork as we approach the end of the year. Also, since we’re just starting the project up I haven’t taken any pictures of bags yet, but as soon as I get some pictures of the bags I will email them to you! 🙂

Read more

By Elisabeth Sullivan March 24, 2014
56 comments
rebelling against low expectations

The Rebelution is a teenage rebellion against low expectations—a worldwide campaign to reject apathy, embrace responsibility, and do hard things. Learn More →