See what I did there? I tried to leave you hanging a bit so that you would come back for more! How ingenious is that? I go for months without any activity on the blog and then when I finally write something, I leave you hanging for a bit. Now I am writing a second post on the same day. See, I told you I am not good at this…
Back to the reactions –
Almost every missionary we talked to said something along these lines: “Oh. My. Goodness. That is so needed – when will you be open so we can come down?”
Most of our supporters said: “Wow! That sounds so much like you and Cindy! It would be great for you guys to do something like that! A Greek island huh? Can we come visit?”
Our mission leaders said: “This is great – you guys should move forward with this!!”
We both saw all of this positivity as confirmation that we were onto something. Let me pause here to interject something. From the very beginning of our missionary lives, Cindy and I have been involved in helping others see their visions come to pass. Every ministry we have worked with, every Bible study we have led, virtually everything we have done has been in response to and support of someone else’s vision. This is something that we feel is uniquely our vision, and it looks big and scary, and virtually impossible to pull off, but we really, truly believe this is a God thing.
So now we are starting off a new year. This year will be a year of huge transitions for our family. Emily and Caleb will transition back to life in the US of A as college students. Cindy and I will transition into life as “empty nesters”. I will leave AEP, where I have truly enjoyed working for the last several years. We are beginning to pursue this new vision, which means we will have to spend some significant time back in the US for fundraising too. Lots of big changes.
Truthfully, we have never been great at fundraising. Since our return to Albania back in 2005, we have consistently been under-supported (at least, according to the standards of most mission agencies). We came back with less than half of the monthly support we had when we came to Albania the first time back in 1999. Our monthly donations are still about $1000-$1500/month less than what we received almost 13 years ago. This past year we received about $8000 less than we did the year before. I hate talking about this kind of stuff because it often comes across as if we are whining or begging or something, but if people don't know about it, they can't do anything about it, right? It is our reality - and I know that it is also the reality of lots of folks around the world due to the current economic situation. It gives us yet another point of contact/point of reference for those we are hoping to help encourage. We can truly empathize with where they are.
Now we are on the verge of trying to raise what for us (and pretty much everyone we know) is a huge amount of money to purchase a property in Greece. We must be nuts, right? Wrong. We are firm believers that if this is truly God’s project, then God has the provision out there for it. Even though the financial pressure on our family has never really let off, we have always been provided for – and we have learned that God is always faithful! We are expectantly looking forward to seeing how God is going to pull this one off!
So now we are asking you to pray. And to give. And to connect us to other folks who might share this vision of seeing missionaries stay on the field and be successful. And to connect us with people of substantial means who might want to partner with us in this vision. And to pray some more. While the giving is important, we know that the praying is the key!
We believe we have found a property that will serve our purposes very well. With the current financial crisis in Greece, and the Eurozone we think it is a bargain. I’ll tell you more about it in the next post.
No comments:
Post a Comment