We bought a "new" (aka used, but new to us) van last fall. During the cash for clunkers episode, Bill was convinced that we needed to trade in and take advantage of the "free" money. I was not so convinced. He looked into it and realized that the van we would want to trade it didn't qualify under the plan so we didn't do it. We did however need a new vehicle so we went ahead and bought a used van. It's great. Love it. But the '97 Dodge Caravan that was falling apart wasn't worth anything for a trade in. No worries, Bill and Aaron had big plans to take the Caravan under their wings and "pimp" it out. There was talks of flat screen TVs, Video Consoles, mini fridges you name it. So the now precious hobby got prime real estate in the garage. That was until winter came around. Then I politely reminded my husband that I was not going to be cleaning snow off my van all winter long and that the hobby needed to find another home. It did, in our driveway. Although at this point the van had sat for so long that the transmission no longer worked without big clouds of black smoke billowing out from under the hood. Still all winter long there was still daydreaming going on about what the van would look like. It sat in the driveway until spring came around. Once the snow was gone, Bill tried to move it. Bill had conceded that with all his work traveling and all the home projects to be done there simply isn't time to work on the van. There was a glimmer of hope to donate it to Gearheads, but when Bill tried to move it again, the brakes now were froze up and it was deemed undonatable. Then there were several weeks of Bill saying we need to just get it to a salvage yard, there is no value left in this piece of junk, but there it still sat. Enter this weekend, we have been working on the landscaping in our yard (another post to come later regarding that!) and Bill decided it was time to part ways with the Caravan. And what he said next warmed my heart to no end, but first some necessary info..........
Jon and Michelle Lloyd are employees at Prairie Lakes Church (where I also work). They moved here last November. Jon is one of our Worship leaders and Michelle is the receptionist for the Cedar Falls campus. I love them both. They are such amazing people. They are unable to have biological children and are in the process of trying to adopt a child. They have decided they will adopt a child without going into debt which I greatly admire both from a financial perspective and a patience perspective. I am not sure I would be that strong. You can follow their story here. They have been doing various fundraising activities to try to get to their goal sooner. So back to the Caravan, Bill said to me, let's call the salvage yard and take the money they give to us and give it to the Lloyds to put toward their adoption. Amazing!
Amazing in so many ways. Generally we are pretty strategic with our giving. We don't have a lot of extra to give these days and so we try to make sure the most of our giving. And by most I mean we only give to those things that will give back to us (ie. tax deduction!) We also could have so easily taken the money and put it toward a new lawnmower that we need, or toward our summer vacation fund, or toward the mommy needs to cover the gray hair fund, but we decided nope it belongs to baby Lloyd. We were so convicted that we asked the salvage yard to make the check directly to Michelle so that the money couldn't get sucked into the vortex of our family checking account. But the most amazing thing that happened was the conversation I had with my materialistic tween.
I picked up the kids after school and told them I needed to drop off a paper before we went home. We went to the salvage yard and I was explaining that we were finally getting rid of the Caravan. So we got there, I went inside did the business and came out with the check. As I continued to explain that no we didn't have to pay for them to take the van away and that in fact we got money for it, Aaron's ears perked up and he immediately said yea, you can buy me a new bike. I simply said nope, we are taking the money and giving it to the Lloyds. I told them about the adoption process and how much it cost and all the things the Lloyds are doing to try to get enough money together to adopt. I told them that Dad and I had decided there was no better way to spend the money than to give it to the Lloyds. It truly was an amazing conversation and I am truly hopeful that the kids will see and remember that sometimes there are more important things to do with some extra money than spend it on yourself.
