First off, love your blog. As a youth leader myself, your blog is on my list of daily reads–both for inspiration and just uplifting. I’m sure I’ve probably commented on posts a few times over the past couple of months, and maybe even linked to you from time to time from my blog.

I’m emailing to ask a favor. I know you prolly get tons of emails from people looking for help, but I’m hoping this one might stand out. My wife and I are expecting our first child, Noah Whitney, sometime this month. Which is so awesome, and so exciting, but with a small catch. My wife, Crystal, currently works retail, and is just below “full-time”, which means no paid maternity leave. (And you know as well as I do, that there’s not big money in ministry to pick up the slack if she takes an extended length of time off.) Crystal really wants to be able to spend the summer at home with Noah (she’ll start teaching elementary music in the Fall), but we just can’t afford to do that.

So we’ve been praying and asking God for guidance and for the courage to trust in Him. It was during a moment of prayer that an idea was born: iWannaPlayMommy.com . It’s basically a website explaining our situation and asking others for help. (If you’ve heard of SaveKaryn–the girl who paid off her $20,000 credit card debt from donations through her website, it’s the same premise.) The goal is for tons of people to donate a small amount of money.

We just launched the site today, and have already received donations. But in order for this to work, it’s got to reach a larger audience. That’s where the favor come is in. If you could, please take a minute and check out the site. If it’s something that you think is worthwhile to support, throw a link up on your website, post a quick blog about it, twitter it, etc. There’s a linkback graphic under the help section if you’re interested.

Thanks for at least reading this email. And I hope that God continues to bless you, your family and your ministry.

Peace.

* http://www.iwannaplaymommy.com *