Real Hope.

This last weekend, I got the opportunity to help out Hope 103.2 with their annual June Appeal. For those who aren't aware, Hope is a community listener-funded Christian radio station. It doesn't get government or commercial support - it has a limited amount of air time that it can give to sponsors for commercials, and some sponsors are on the website, but the rest of their money they get from people who donate. So every year they have a big effort leading up to the end of the financial year in June. (I think they might also have another one in November. Not sure.)

This year, their target was $850,000. Just from donations. I was there on Friday, Saturday and Monday for a fair bit of time, and got to see a reasonable amount of what was happening. I'd been part of it last year as well, but I don't think I was there for as long.

Now, that my seem like a pretty hefty target for some of you folks - particularly if you've ever tried raising money yourself! But they actually ended up raising over $1.1 million. Which is pretty darn awesome.

So, I was on the phones, and people would ring in and say they wanted to give a particular amount, and sometimes they would share a bit of a story with you. You had people ringing in to give anything from ten dollars to ten thousand dollars, and everything in between. Kids donating pocket money and birthday money, people out of work donating money, single parents, pensioners, businesses, uni students - people from just about everywhere. We actually had someone from America who works on the plane trip from somewhere in America to Sydney calling in to give! (She was in Sydney at the time, thankfully.)

As you can imagine, you got some incredible stories. Stories of people who had lost so much, and then found Hope; people who just happened upon the station at just the right time; people who had been listening to the station since it started 36 years ago (though it wasn't called Hope back then); I even had one guy call in who wasn't a Christian, but still wanted to donate because he listened so much! It was pretty awesome.

My story with Hope, for a long time, wasn't really my story at all. I grew up with my parents having 103.2 on in the car whenever we were driving around, so it was the main radio station that I knew (though Dad would often put on the sport AM station). So many of the other stations were talking about things or playing music that I wasn't comfortable with playing, so when it came to the point where I had my own car and chose what I played myself, Hope was my first choice. But most of the time, I just played CDs, and didn't listen to the radio. I just wanted music! Radio had too many ads and talking for me.

This year, though, that changed a bit. I've talked in one of the other posts about how I've been struggling this year, particularly with my point of trying to do it alone (not healthy). Hope has really helped me through that, I think. More and more this year, I've found that I've been listening to Hope, and leaving the CDs out. Not all the time, but now most of the time, I'm listening to the radio rather than my collection (and I've got quite a collection!) - though this may also be something to do with the fact that I now have work in the morning, and Dan and Dwayne are on :D (The same Dan from Saturday Disney, 90s kids. Yep. He's pretty great :) )

So yeah. That's my Hope story, I guess. But what I've realised, looking back, is that Hope is really two big things.
Firstly, it brings joy. The amount of laughter and joy and fun in that radio station is fantastic. And I particularly felt that being there, and talking to the people and interacting with them myself.
Secondly, it shows you that God is working, here and now. Because you hear these stories of Hope, so often, when people ring in and talk about the impact that Hope has had on their lives; and you realise that God is still there, and still working, and still being awesome. (Because that's just what he does, yo.)
And through that, there is real hope. Not a kind of nice idea or philosophy or airy-fairy thing, but real. Working. Living. Moving. Today.

And that's pretty cool ;)