Catch hope & encouragement with Erica on weekday mornings from 5:00 AM – 10:00 AM, and Sundays from 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Erica:
Christmas SPIRIT 105.3. Hi, it’s Erica.
Debbie Christian:
Hi, this is Debbie Christian.
Erica:
Debbie, thank you so much for getting in touch this morning. How are you?
Debbie Christian:
I’m good.
Erica:
I bet you are. Word on the street is you got a call that turned into a Christmas miracle. What happened?
Debbie Christian:
Oh my goodness. So, I am the director of the Auburn Food Bank, and we have been needing a lot of money to finish a build, remodel that we’ve been doing. I get a phone call from a bookkeeper to a company who asked me a ton of questions. Hung up the phone that night. Got another phone call the next day that says, Hey, my boss wants to talk to you. They were both on the line, asked a lot more questions, and finally he made the comment that he thinks he could help me. And in my mind, I’m thinking, wonderful. $50,000 maybe! And I don’t think I said anything to that. And he said, and we’ll take care of it all. It was $800,000.
Erica:
Debbie, What did you say when you picked up the phone off the floor?
Debbie Christian:
Well, like, oh my goodness. Thank you. Are you sure? I mean, you’re trying to process that you heard, right? You’re trying to figure out if he said what he said,. Who does that? I mean, that doesn’t happen every day to anybody I know. Quite shocking. So
Erica:
How is this gift going to change things at the Auburn Food Bank?
Debbie Christian:
Oh, this gift pays for our debt to our contractor so that we can finish our build out. So, we’ve been in this building that I’m in right now, 1200 square feet for over 30 years. We outgrew it well over 20 years ago. I’ve been here 17, and we’ve just been in a really tiny space, and we don’t have any parking, we don’t have any room in our lobby. We’re having to lock our door so people can’t come in. So we can only have 10 people in the lobby, and then we open the door to get 10 more. So, it’s a terrible situation. So this gets us paid up, and by the end of December, 1st of January, they’re going to be completely done with construction, and we will get to move in shortly after we get our occupancy permits. And so, I’m thinking by the 1st of February, we’re onto a new life.
Erica:
Oh, Debbie, how did you share the news with your team? What was that like?
Debbie Christian:
Well, so my staff have been really worried. And of course they don’t have to be the one out here begging or even talking about it, right. But I know they were very worried and getting very nervous and worried about, were we going to make payroll next time? So, I had ’em all come into a staff meeting, which I don’t have very often. So having a staff meeting is unusual. A little like, oh, what is she going to do now? And so, I told ’em to bring their telephone with them, and I wanted them to receive a text. I was going to send them a text. And they all looked at me like I was nuts. And so I sent this picture of the check to everybody at one time.
Erica:
Oh my goodness.
Debbie Christian:
And around the room, it was so fun to watch their eyes light up, their shock, their, “Oh my goodness, are you serious? Who did this?” Those kinds of questions. Does this mean we really get to move? So that was just a lot of fun to be able to do it that way rather than tell one of ’em to wait to tell another, to wait to tell another. And who knows what the message would be if they all started blabbing.
Erica:
Exactly. One of the things that really touches my heart about this story is that the person has chosen to remain anonymous. That’s still true, right?
Debbie Christian:
Yes, very.
Erica:
And I mean, I just think that is so incredible and I just feel like God is going to bless this person big time, don’t you?
Debbie Christian:
Yes. Well, that’s exactly my prayer. He is a Christian man, Christian company. And when he told his bookkeeper that he was going to do this, she said, I waited a full day. And when he came in the next morning, she said, are you sure? Are you really positive you want to do this? And his answer to her was, God told me to do this. I have no second guesses. I’m done.
Erica:
Okay. Debbie, I love this story so much. I’m so happy you got your Christmas miracle. God bless you and your whole team and the work you do.
Debbie Christian:
Thank you very much.
Erica:
Merry Christmas, my friend.
Debbie Christian:
Thank you!
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