And It Rained Ball Gowns Like Manna From Heaven

When I decided we were going to make Cinderella our spring outreach in 2010, a lot of the girls got over the top excited. I regretted agreeing to it, because my first thought was, "wow this is going to be hard on our little budget."

The show requires so many costumes that just don't come cheap - mice, a dog, a cat, and lots and lots of ball gowns. I hate recruiting boys for Turning Point. When we first started the ministry, we had 5 guys, and it has fluctuated between three and zero per show ever since then. It's tough to find straight guys with rhythm who want to dance. So I told the girls that we would have a "bring your own boy" night, where whoever found a dance partner, they could do the formal waltz in the play.

Well, BYOB spread like wild fire throughout the church. It has turned into a Sadie Hawkins dance around here, girls asking guys, agonizing over who to ask (this goes for the adults too! i am not going to lay blame on just the teens!) and everyone has just gone nuts. Suddenly almost everyone managed to find aforementioned required male, and now we have over 20 girls in the ballroom dance scene, when I was planning for more like 8.

I looked online forever - dresses are just expensive. Especially since more than anything, I was lusting after that ultra-formal poofy look from Cinderella's day. So I prayed.

I prayed some more.

Today I had an appointment with Alexandria's in downtown Roseville. They rent out ball gowns for around $120 per day. We would need them for two weeks minimum, times 20 dresses......yikes.

But it turns out that the owner is a Christian and got excited about what we're doing outreach wise, and she is donating dresses to us!!! All of them for a very small fee, including petticoats and hoop skirts for the "poof"! At cost, the dresses and underskirts would have been $9600. We are getting everything for basically free.

Sometimes miracles just fall into my lap. Frank said that it's because I work hard. I think it's just because God likes me. Either way, I am giving a big WOOT! to the man upstairs for making my life 10 gazillion times easier today.