Que Milagro! We Did It!

By Mike Tenbusch | November 12, 2021

The first donation I ever received was for $25.  It was in 1997.  It came from a friend and mentor named Dan Mulhern with a handwritten note that said, “It’s not much, but I want you to know that good things will follow when you follow the Holy Spirit.” 
 
Dan and his wife had three young kids at the time.  He was a lawyer from Harvard who had returned to Detroit to run the county’s youth department.  I was also a lawyer trying to start a non-profit in Detroit giving kids in tough neighborhoods the chance to play baseball and then get a computer after the season had ended.  His gift and his advice helped to start an organization that now serves 14,000 kids a year and makes its home at the site of the old Tiger Stadium, where baseball’s legends played for almost 100 years.
 
Dan and I have run in two marathons together over the last 25 years, and more than a couple figuratively too.  We have each gone through some tough stretches in life, and the Holy Spirit has brought us together at pivotal times to help each other run our race.
 
This happened again last week.  Despite your best efforts and mine, the great IntSam Global 5K had stalled just short of our goal of raising $120,000 to feed 100 families for a year.  For days, we were stuck at $118,500.  I clicked on the race website every few hours on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday to get an updated number, but it did not budge!
 
Then I received another unsolicited note from Dan, this one through email, that he had just sent a check for $2,000 to help keep food on the tables for our families.  Twenty-five years after sending the first donation I ever received, Dan got us across the finish line with food to spare!
 
Dan never stopped heeding his own advice: Follow the Holy Spirit and good things will follow.  Thank God so many people like you did too.  More students who have traveled with us in the past, more families, and more churches formed teams and came together to contribute.
 
Just over 1,200 people like you made sure that 100 families with the most critical needs have food to survive the year ahead.  Thank you for standing up for them, for running for them, for loving them.

A collage of some of the inspiring races that took place around the U.S. Runners include, from top left to bottom right: Tom and Mary Wakefield, team captains of Team Wake and Shake in Ann Arbor, MI; the MSU IntSam Club; one of the girls’ teams from Regis Jesuit High School in Colorado; Tom Weinandy and Dan Moates in Bowling Green, OH; Christopher Benjamin, racing on behalf of Kiwanis Club Friends Across Borders Jamaica in NYC; one of the co-ed teams from Regis Jesuit; the Guyesky family in Raleigh, NC; and Samantha Olmstead and Brandon Pelletier of the Jungle Family Team in front of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington D.C.

You followed your calling to help.  I pray that the friends and family who ran with you this year will continue to bless you with their friendship and love for years to come, as Dan has done for me.  And I want to encourage you to continue to follow the Holy Spirit in all your ways: Good things will follow when you do.
 
Please take 90 seconds to see the evidence of good things in the strides and smiles of your teammates in this race.

A recap of what happened in this year’s race.  Thank you!  We did it!

Congratulations to five repeat champions, and one new one for the fastest company:
 
Fastest Church in the World              St. Mary’s Student Parish, Ann Arbor
Fastest Company in the World          SJS Investments, Toledo
Fastest Country in the World             Ethiopia
Fastest Family in the World               Dan Smoke/Mary Vincent’s Dozen Cuzins
Fastest Law Firm in the World           Plunkett Cooney, Detroit
Fastest School in the World               Regis Jesuit High School, Denver

Some more pictures from the races that took place around the world, including Ethiopia (first), Jamaica (second), Nicaragua (third), San Pedro Sula, Honduras (fourth), Guatemala (fifth), and Tegucigalpa, Honduras (sixth).