Year of Miracles #30

This past week was pretty hectic with work and birthday celebrating and all. Thursday night was the culmination of a research project that in itself was the answer to prayer (read here). I was to moderate two focus groups for a local shopping center. In addition to doing the moderating I also was in charge of recruiting the dozen or so people to show up for each group discussion. I had been working on the recruiting for more than a week but was still short five people on Tuesday. At this point I was starting to get nervous and worried. If I did not have enough people show up then I would be in trouble.

To find five more people I called all my friends to ask if they knew anyone who lived in south Chandler. I was even asking ward members as I was picking up my kids from school. No one seemed to know anyone. And those who did know someone ended up being dead ends. At one point I had a commitment from a lady, but then her husband had an accident on a scooter and she had to withdraw. Darn husbands!

Finally I resorted to prayer and started making calls from a list of strangers who lived in the right zip codes. Can I just say there are few jobs worse in this life than cold calling? It is awful. But my prayer was answered anyway. Within an hour of starting on the cold call list I found three people--and two of them were able to refer two other people who were interested in coming to my focus group. So I was able to fill all five spots and wrap up the recruiting. Even more amazing was that all five of these people showed up to my focus group and had great insights to share about the shopping center.

Scripture of the Day: Luke 24:27