Boss wins car in raffle, gives it to freelancer in need

A couple months ago, the transmission on Dingle's car failed and it was beyond repair, so he and Fawcett prayed that Dingle would be able to get a car.

"There was no point," Dingle said. "If I would put the money to get the car fixed, it's a 20-year-old car with almost 300,000 miles on it, so it could break next week, so I just wasted $4,000-$5,000 to get it fixed. There was no point."

Dingle had been using his grandfather's truck borrowing it from time to time.

"It's been frustrating, and it's been very hard," Dingle said. "It's still not the best car to drive in the rain because it slides some times. It's actually running on its last leg."

The truck doesn't have air conditioning also, so the summer has been a challenge for him.

Fawcett looked at Craigslist and at Wheels for Hope to find a low-cost car that Dingle could slowly pay him back for overtime, until he received an email from Wood advertising her raffle. Fawcett decided to buy a ticket with one person in mind: Dingle.

"I almost deleted it," Fawcett said. "Right before I hit delete, I said, 'Let me just buy this car. If I win it, it's going to Mikail.'"

The fundraiser allowed people to purchase up to five tickets, but Fawcett only purchased one. He said he didn't think he had a chance to win but he didn't mind giving $100 to Wood's campaign.

Fawcett got the ticket a couple days later and put it on his desk, forgetting about it for weeks. Then, Wood called him with the good news. Wood's campaign said 289 tickets were sold for the raffle. After 288 reaches into the basket, Fawcett's ticket was the last remaining one.

"My heart started beating out of my chest and I broke out in tears and I was praising the Lord for an answered prayer for Mikail," Fawcett said. "I knew from the moment I heard that the car was for him."

The worst part of it was keeping the good news a secret from Dingle for a week. He said it was the hardest secret he had ever kept.

Wood met Dingle and Fawcett at WRAL to award him with his new vehicle. To get him to come with him to the studio, Fawcett told him that the firm had a project with WRAL and they had a scheduled meeting with some clients that afternoon.

Dingle had a feeling something was up, though, because Fawcett asked for Dingle's driver's license and insurance information a couple days beforehand.

"I was like, this is kind of weird," Dingle said. "I was kind of skeptical."

Dingle said he had a feeling he knew what was going on once he saw Wood in the office and they were talking about the raffle. Once he discovered that he won the car, he was "awestruck."

"This is the Lord, man," Dingle said. "There's no other way to explain it. I'm still shaking from the fact that I have a car now that's reliable. God is a provider in every way. Even when it looks like there's a mountain on both sides of you, God will miraculously make a way."

In addition, Fawcett decided to purchase insurance on the car.

Wood called her role in the situation her part in God's plan for Dingle, and Fawcett continues to believe that this had to have been ordained by God.

"I believe in miracles," Fawcett said. "For anybody out there who doesn't have hope or needs some sort of intervention in their life, I just want to say that prayer works and we have a God that loves us."