Missionary Support: Churches or Individuals?

Which group is better for raising support?  These are some of the arguments on both sides.

Churches are better:

• They are consistent.  If they commit to you, you can be quite sure that the money will be there every month.  If they have to let you go, they will notify you.
• They can give larger amounts.
• You have a whole group of people behind you praying for you.

Individuals are better:

• They are quicker in their decisions to take you on for support.
• We can have a personal connection with them.  When you visit them, you are only visiting one person or family instead of a whole group at once.
• We can be more involved personally in their lives.

Which do we want?  Both.  Both are very important to us.  We recognize there are advantages and disadvantages on both sides, but we love the advantages that having both gives us.  Yes, I know these are my reasons and they may not be the same for our supporters, but from this side of the process, I love having both.

I want churches because:

• I have been part of prayer meetings where prayers have gone up from an entire congregation on behalf of their missionary.  I want individuals in their churches to have that corporate sense of “We’re in this together.  We’re on our knees before God as an army who is fighting with them.”
• We both love explaining missions and our particular ministry to groups of people.  For Charlie, that’s often from the pulpit.  For me, it’s with children, teens, and women.  I love the questions they ask and the interest they have.  It encourages me to keep our presentations fresh and meaningful, and to make sure we are one our knees before God before each one of those presentations asking Him what His desires are for that group of people to know.
• When we have churches, we pray for their corporate witness and testimony in the community, for their leaders, and for the decisions they have in front of them.  We want to be able to support entire churches this way.

I want individuals because:

• We can be involved personally in their lives.  When a baby is born, we rejoice.  When a parent dies, we grieve.  
• We pray more personally for those people who are our personal supporters.  When we pray for a church, we are praying for the whole church and sometimes a person or two who comes to mind at the time.  But when we have individual families supporting us, we pray for the family’s own needs.
• We can visit with them easily when we pass through town.  With churches, we can only see them as a group on Wednesdays and Sundays, but with individuals we can meet up for coffee and get together on other days of the week.

So as we wait for our support to come in, we are praying that God would give us both individuals and churches who would see and want to support the niche that God has given us in missions of working under national leaders to train their people.

Are We Nuts?

Seriously, have we lost our marbles?  Do we have a screw lose?  Are we one off our rockers?  I could go on with all the many idioms there are for being seriously crazy.  Take a look at what I mean.

Our home in Hampden, ME

In 2010:

• We lived in a beautiful 2400 square foot house with hardwood floors and a newly remodelled kitchen, a new roof and a new septic system.  It was nestled in the woods overlooking the water.  In the winter, we could see the Coast Guard ice breaker maneuver its way through the ice up to the Bangor harbor.  It felt like it was in the country, but it was only a mile from the grocery store and post office, and only three miles from church. 
• We received a weekly paycheck from a faithful congregation who made sure that we were well cared-for.
• Our lives intertwined with a community of people we had come to know and love.
• We had a neighbor I had come to know and love who had ties to Indonesia, my birthplace.
• We took a missions trip to the Dominican Republic.

In other words, we had it made.

In 2011,

• We were no longer homeowners.  We sold our home, put the money in the bank and moved through a series of short-term residences.
• Charlie stepped down from being the pastor of our dearly loved church.
• We began to visit many churches in Maine to explain to them our vision of going to foreign countries to be part of a teaching team in various colleges and seminaries.

Our previously "stable" life was gone.  How exciting!

Or are we nuts?  Unstable?  Looney?  Batty?  Insane?

The wedding in CT where Charlie officiated.

In 2012,

•  We have already travelled thousands of miles, visiting Connecticut, Virginia, South Carolina and Florida.
• We will be traveling at least 5500 miles in the next two months. 
• We are planning to go to Guatemala in July. 
• From where we are right now, it looks like our expenses will likely exceed our income. 
• It's a good thing we are trusting the One who owns the wealth of every nation.

Or are we nuts?  Delusional?  Bonkers?  Touched in the head?

Sometimes when I look at the facts, I just laugh.  We are crazy! 

But it's so much fun to depend on the Almighty God and to know that He is the One who will supply all our needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.  Since He is the One who called us into this ministry, He will provide for us. 

Our current residence - my parents' home in Georgia.

To be honest, however, the financial needs we have are great, but they are certainly not the greatest needs we have right now.  We need God to work in people's hearts when Charlie preaches.  We need to see Him at work when we're out visiting people.  We need His grace to be evident in our lives.  We need to be faithful testimonies to His power, grace, and love.  In short, we need Him.


Are we nuts?  Psychotic?  Out to lunch?  Unhinged?

The world around us would probably say we are.  If we are, I hope we are crazy enough to believe in our awesome, wonderful God who will take our craziness and use it for His eternal glory.

Shannon

I wish I had taken a photo of her.  Her straight brown hair streamed down to the middle of her back, and her big brown eyes smiled as I talked with her.  Her skin was the color of carmels.  As a seven-year-old, her black velvet and red taffeta dress and shiny dress shoes seemed perfectly suited for "Sunday-go-to-meeting" clothes.

I wish I had recorded her when she spoke.  Her eyes lit up when she talked to me, especially when she said, "I'm going to be a missionary when I grow up.  I'm going to tell Muslims about Jesus. "  You would have seen the intensity of her desire to serve her Lord and heard her compassion for those who do not know the joys of having Jesus as their Savior.

She knows all the missionaries in their church by name and where they serve.  She prays for them.  She prays for us.  When we go back to her church, I look forward to seeing how she has matured in the Lord and what God is teaching her to prepare her for her future.

I'm encouraged by children like her who love us and pray for us.  It is the joy of my heart to hear someone say, "We pray for you every day."

A Whiff of Wisteria

For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.  As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.  For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.  Psalm 103:14-16

I smelled them before I saw them - a strong floral scent on the wind.  I looked around and didn't see anything that looked like it could be producing such a beautiful smell.  Then I looked up the road.  More than a block away, wisteria hung like clusters of grapes from a vine, high up in the trees.  The closer I got, the stronger the smell.  It was the first time I remember seeing so many of them growing wild.

I clipped one bunch of flowers and carried it home, placing it in a slender vase.  Within hours, however, the petals had shrivelled and died. 

They were so beautiful that the next day I returned to the tree-clinging wisteria vines to take pictures.  Once again I could smell them before I was even close.  Bumblebees buzzed among them, collecting their sweet nectar. 


I remembered the reminders from Scripture that our lives are temporary and short-lived.  We are like flowers of the field that (hopefully) give off beauty and sweet fragrance for a time and then are no more. 

Although the stem I had cut had withered and died, the scent was still there.  Gathering the petals together in a small bowl, I kept them by my computer so that I could catch a whiff of their sweet smell as I worked.


Lord, let my life be like these wisteria flowers.  Let it be a sweet smell to people around me.  Let it shout your amazing grace to everyone who stops to look at what You have done.  And when my life is over,  let it linger on for a while as a testimony to Your glory, creative wisdom, and power.

A Double Rainbow and Sunshine



Emily and her parents

The weather forecast did not look promising for an outdoor wedding.  As we gathered for the rehearsal,  the skies were dark.  The windshield seemed wrinkled from the rain drops streaming down, and the roof crackled as tiny raindrops bounced off its surface.  One by one, cars arrived at the Webb Barn to go over the details of the wedding. 

Charlie grabbed an umbrella and joined the others.  I stayed in the car and began to write, since there was no reason for me to get out in the pouring rain.  A few minutes later, however, the rain tapered, and instead of having to do the rehearsal inside, the party was able to go through things outside where the ceremony was to occur. 

As we left that night, a double rainbow arced over the barn, a reminder that He always keeps His promises.

The double rainbow was so clear to the naked eye but hard to see here.

 
It was as though the Lord had already heard my request for good weather and was reminding me of His mercies that are new every morning.

The day of the wedding dawned with clear blue skies and beautiful  cool breezes.  The nor’easter was gone, and in its place were the sparkling clean greens of spring.
 
Two lives were joined together in marriage that day as Emily and Kyle pledged their love and their lives to each other forever. 

My hope for them as they go through life together is that they will continue to grow in their love for each other and that they will learn the joys and blessings of totally trusting the God who gave them the double rainbow for their rehearsal and sunshine for their wedding day.  They will have dark and sunny days ahead, and through it all, I wish for them the ability to see God who always keeps all of His promises.