By Adam Miller
H
earing and doing are very different, but Emily Blake experienced the rare moment when they’re the same thing. A few years ago at a beach conference the then 13-year-old from Alpharetta, Georgia, heard the words “Don’t just be good kids. Do great things for God.” That was a hun- dred phone calls, $40,000, dozens of media interviews, and three years ago. “She told me she wanted to start a ma- ternity clinic,” says Emily’s mom Stepha- nie. “I told her to pray about it. She came back two months later and brought it up again. So we started making phone calls.” A maternity clinic is a facility in devel- oping countries that provides mothers with food, medicine, mothering skills and job training from conception until their child is three years old. The clinics save many lives. The price tag is generally around $10,000. But because certain areas were closed for new projects during Emily’s time- frame, her project would cost four times as much. How was a 13-year-old going to raise
that much money?
They weren’t entirely sure, but Emily developed faith that God was “always go- ing to be there for you even when it seems incredible and you don’t think you’ll be able to do it.” The car washes began, as did the letter writing to
friends and family. Emily even hosted benefi t concerts, a rarity among tweens.
“Through all that we raised about $12,000,” says Em- ily’s mom. Almost $30,000 short of their goal. The whole process brought to mind this idea, which
Emily quotes today in various forms, that Christ doesn’t just make people good. He makes His name great through the lives of the unhindered. “God has given everyone a specifi c passion for some- thing,” says Emily. “If we just pray about it, He will be faithful to open doors.”
God’s open door came in the way of a $30,000 anony- mous donation.
The maternity clinic in Kenya has provided hundreds
of women with the care they need and a number are new disciples of Jesus Christ. “If I was able to do this then why shouldn’t I,” says
Emily, recounting her family’s visit to the clinic last year where grateful families fl ooded the street to welcome her. She continues her ministry through the North Ameri- can Mission Board’s World Changers projects and serves with her local church, First Baptist Church of Alpharetta, in missions and service opportunities. And Emily doesn’t plan to stop any time soon. She looks to a future of missions and, perhaps, medicine. “I plan to be a missionary some day,” she says. And, in many ways, that some day is now. OM
Adam Miller is associate editor of On Mission.
ON MISSION • Summer 2010 25
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