First load is headed to Jordan!

After about two and half months of collecting clothes, shoes, and blankets, our first load of donations are headed out! We have been overwhelmed by the amount of items that people, churches, our local high school, and my college have donated! We have a full storage unit that is completely bursting at the seams. We are excited to load it up and send it to the organization we are teaming with, Global Aid Network in Pennsylvania. It will then be shipped right to the refugees in Jordan.

Every week we receive several donations from various people or groups and it's always so exciting to see the things people decide to donate. This week I was particularly touched by several donations we received. A group of women from the Mexico First Presbyterian Church knitted a large load of hats and scarfs to donate; these are MUCH appreciated as it is getting very cold in the Middle East. The time and effort these women put into each one is very touching and I know will bless many people!

  

Another donation we received from Kentucky Road Christian Church - I was told a family went and bought several blankets to donate, going above and beyond to help others in need. And then, just tonight we received a call that a woman shared our efforts with a class in the neighboring town of Columbia, where several Syrians are a part of her class. They are very eager to help out and donate a large amount of clothing.

Next week, I will be going to Tennessee to pick up a load of donations, and a load from Illinois is on it's way! The following week, I will be going back to St Louis to pick up a load of clothes from Harvest Bible Chapel, where I had the privilege to share last month. 

We are very excited and blessed to have our fist load go into Jordan, but we still want to reach more refugees in the other countries as well. We are working on finding the connections and open doors into Iraq, Lebanon, and Turkey. It will take time and money, but God has already exceeded my expectations and I know He will continue to do so. God is the God of the impossible. He already turned one bag of clothes into a storage unit bursting with clothes! 

We cannot thank you enough for your donations! Truly from the bottom of our hearts THANK YOU!

Please keep praying and spreading the word. We pray and hope that this is just the first of many donation loads that will head overseas to help the Syrian refugees! 

All For Him,

Natalie 

Fill it up, Lord!

Hello friends,

It is hard to believe that Clothe Syria is only a month old, and so much has 

happened in such a short time! It is awesome and encouraging seeing how excited and 

willing people are to give. The small dream I began with has now pushed me to dream 

even bigger! 

I have been very blessed to have personally shared my vision of Clothe Syria 

with the United Methodist youth group, Kentucky Road Christian Church, and Central 

Christian College of the Bible. I received great responses from all three places and many 

donations have come through them. Thank you to all of them.

Through flyers and word of mouth, Clothe Syria has also spread to other groups 

and churches as well. Lockwood Park Baptist Church in Mexico collected a large 

donation, Saybrook Christian Church in Saybrook, IL is collecting clothes, and the 

Spanish teacher at Mexico High School challenged his students to see which class could 

collect the most clothes. Many individuals have given as well, and I am very thankful. On the 16th

of this month, I am going to Harvest Bible Chapel in St. Louis to share with their youth group.

As quickly as I can unload a car full of donations; my car is filled 

again with more, which is alright with me! As far as we are concerned there are no limits!

A storage unit has also been donated for our use. It is a huge blessing and has 

now become a good challenge to see if we can fill it from floor to ceiling, which is 

quickly becoming a reality! 

GAiN is sending a shipment this Thursday to Jordan, however they informed us it 

is already full, and our donations can go on the next shipment. We are very thankful for 

GAiN and their willingness to allow us to partner with them. It was a little disappointing 

to miss this shipment, but I know that God hasn’t brought us this far to leave us hanging. 

With that being said, we also want to get clothes and blankets into the other countries as 

well, Lebanon, Iraq, and Turkey. Our new goal will be finding a way to get them there. 

We are confident, though it will take time, that we will see our donations get into every 

country! 

It is truly humbling to be a part of all that is happening with Clothe Syria, I still 

get goosebumps when I think about it. Again, thank you so much to everyone who has donated, 

helped to spread the word, and supported our efforts.

Keep the prayers coming! It's my prayer that the storage unit would be filled from from floor to ceiling - fill it up, Lord! 

-Natalie

An update and some great news!

Hi friends!

Clothe Syria is off to a great start, and we are so thankful to all of you who are rallying support! We now have 15 bags of clothes and several more on the way. We also have donations coming from Tennessee, and people in Texas and New Mexico are now getting involved. From the beginning we said that God would be the one to move this forward because it is truly His idea...and He has proven Himself faithful.

Some exciting news!

We have discovered an organization in Pennsylvania that will coordinate shipping and deliver the donated clothing into the hands of the Syrian refugees. They are GAiN USA (Global Aid Network), you can check out their website here and their Facebook page here.They have already sent one shipment to the refugees in Jordan, and said that the timing of our request was perfect. (Isn't that just like God?) They are sending another shipment and our donations can go with it! This will be just the first of many, as they are shipping at the end of the September, and all the donations that are coming in will not be here in time. We are looking forward to partnering with them for this endeavor as we continue to receive more donations!

Sharing the love...

I (Natalie) have been given several opportunities to share the vision for "Clothe Syria". Earlier this week I did an interview, to be published later this month, with the Bulldog Growl, Mexico High's school newspaper. Sunday, September 15, I will share at my home church, Victory Christian Fellowship. That evening I will be sharing at Mexico United Methodist Church, and on the 22nd I will be speaking at Kentucky Road Christian Church. Please let us know if you have a group or belong to a church and want us to come and share the vision of "Clothe Syria". We'd love to share and meet those of you who are getting involved!  

Just some logistics...

If you live in Missouri and have clothes you want to donate but are unable to travel to a drop off location, we are willing to come and pick them up. Please contact us to set up arrangements. Those outside of Missouri in the surrounding states, if you want to spread the word and get several people involved, we would also be willing to drive to your state to pick up the donations!

We are currently working to find more drop-off points for donations to make it easier for everyone to access. Right now donations are being stored at my (Natalie's) house and my parents, but we will run out of room shortly, so if you have a dry, big, safe place that you might be willing to offer as temporary storage until donations are shipped out, please contact us!

We have had several inquiries regarding monetary donations. If people would prefer to send funds (which are needed for shipping) rather than clothes, we are establishing a PayPal account for that purpose. We will post an update soon with the opportunity to donate directly here on our website.

Seriously, thank you!

The vision for Clothe Syria is from God, and I credit Him for any good that we might be able to do through this meager offering. However, it is worth noting that without a bunch of people around me being the hands and feet of Jesus, this just wouldn't be possible. From the bottom of my heart, thank you to all of you who have offered your support, whether it's a bag of clothes, money, an encouraging word, your prayers, or your passion - we are so grateful. I'm also incredibly thankful for my family and friends for rallying and doing a lot of work behind the scenes to get Clothe Syria off of the ground. Hurray for the body of Christ! 

And on a personal note...

The word is spreading quickly through the Mexico High School and several clubs are getting involved as well. It is very encouraging for me to see the high schoolers get excited and passionate about helping. Several did not even know what was happing in Syria, and I have been able to inform them about the war that is going on over there, as well as encourage them that they can make a difference in the world, that I am not anybody special, I just decided to do something and they can too!

Today, I was reading about the Syrian refugees on this website (http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/anti-americanism-spreads-in-syrianrefugee-camps/279538/) and this quote really hit me hard! 

“The public response to appeals has been considerably weak,” Tamer Kirolos of Save the Children’s Amman office told me recently. “After an earthquake or natural disaster, there’s no bad guys, so people can empathize and say, ‘that could happen to me’ or feel you’re giving to a good cause. People in the West just don’t see themselves in this environment. It’s just another conflict in the Middle East. At the end of the day there’s no clear sense of who’s the good guys. The situation is so complex. Nobody understands it. So they’d rather ignore it.”

I do not want to be a person who ignores what is going on! God has blessed me with freedom, peace, and opportunity, I want to use those to the best of my ability. The words that I live by are “Love God, love people”. God loved me so much that He gave his Son to die for me! As long as there is breath in my lungs I will share that love and hope, to the ends of the earth! Clothe Syria is just one small way I am doing that! Thank you for your support and your donations, keep them coming and keep spreading the word! 

Friends, we are making a difference.

"I was naked and you clothed Me...Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to Me." - Matthew 25:36b, 40

All for Him,
Natalie

Not Enough & Saying Yes {My Story}

Hey friends! Thank you so much for coming over to read - it means so much that you've taken the time. Let me introduce myself and tell you a bit about how Clothe Syria began.

My name is Natalie Raboin, I am 24, and live in Mexico Missouri. I have a Bachelor of Science in Cross-Cultural Ministry from Central Christian College of the Bible. When I was 13, I went on my first trip outside of the USA to Monterrey, Mexico. That is where I was exposed to people living in the slums, and people who were hurting, and needy. I realized that the world was much bigger than the U.S. and had a lot of hurting and needy people. That is when I knew that I wanted to be a missionary and reach the people of the world.

My sister Leanne and I 

I went on a two more trips to Monterrey, and then when I was 17 I started traveling more of the world for months at a time. I saw more needs and more hurting people. In the last 7 years I have been to Africa, India, the UK, and Eastern Europe. I have seen and held the orphans, the poor, the homeless, the hopeless, and dying.

On the 24^th of August I went to a Women of Faith conference in Des Moines, Iowa. At the beginning of the conference one of the speakers said a few words about Syria and about refugees that are fleeing the country. She then asked that we would pray with her. As she prayed I never felt such a strong stirring, burden, and conviction to do something about what is happening to the people in Syria. I knew I had to do something! But what?

Later the same speaker, Christine Caine, shared the story from the Gospel of Mark chapter 6 about Jesus feeding the five thousand. Jesus’ disciples came to him and said that the people were hungry, Jesus then tells the disciples to feed them, feed five thousand people! The disciples went out in the crowd to see what they could find and came back with five loaves of bread and two fish. That was not enough for the five thousand men, which did not even include the women and children, there could have easily been fifteen thousand people there! However, Jesus did not even bat an eyelash at the fact that fifteen thousand people needed to eat and they only had five loaves of bread and two fish.

The ingredients for Jesus to do a miracle were in their midst, they just had to go and gather them and give them to Jesus. Then Jesus began to multiply it and everyone ate, and there were even twelve baskets left over. 

Christine Caine went on to say how many times we look at our “not enough” and curse it instead of giving it to Jesus to multiply. We think we have nothing, therefore we give nothing to Jesus and we miss out on miracles.

That is where “Clothe Syria” was born. Me? I was not enough. I didn't have much to give - but I chose to take my "not enough" and hand it over to God and believe that He would make up the rest. I could not wait to get back home and get rid of my clothes. Earlier in the summer I had been feeling the Lord convict me that I needed to live simply, but I was hesitant because - honestly? I like my clothes. But with this vision for the Syrian refugees,  I started throwing my clothes in a black garbage bag! I had never been more excited to get rid of my clothes, even ones I had only worn a few times. It made my heart glad to think that a girl over in Syria might be excited to get an outfit when I had plenty to choose from. 

I am one person, I know that my one bag of clothes will not clothe the 2.5 million refugees that are streaming out of Syria, but this is my “not enough” that I am more than willing and excited to give away and see the Lord multiply it! I said “Yes!” and the multiplying has started. 

So, how about it? What is your not enough? 

Because we have the ingredients for a miracle on our hands, friends. 

Will you join me in saying, “Yes!”