Hey Everyone! Guest blogger Stephen here. I know many of you look forward to Krista's latest "tear jerker" blog posts, so forgive me for taking over the blog. Actually, Krista asked me to post something about support raising. I'm not much of a blogger or Facebooker, so this is usually a chore for me, but I'm actually enjoying this right now.
If you've followed our Journey for any amount of time, you'll know that God's provision has been incredible. I'd say unbelievable, but I'm living it and know that it's real, so I won't go there.
When we started support raising on May 1st of this year, we didn't have any experience and didn't know anything about support raising. We've had some exposure to it because we've supported missionaries in the past, so we've been able to see their methods of support raising. We just started doing it, a little wet behind the ears and a whole lot naive. As I right this on November 27th, (11th wedding anniversary by the way), we have commitments for 77% of our $7,000 monthly budget and our relocation budget of $30,000 is fully funded, none of which came out of our own pocket. We met with our missions pastor a few months ago, and he informed us that this process usually takes a family 18 to 24 months. Thank God he didn't tell us that when we started (and he agrees).
If someone were to ask me for support raising advice, of course we could talk for hours about our experiences. We could give them practical advice on how to approach people, what's effective and what isn't, what you say and what don't you say. All of that would be helpful to them, but the most important advice I could give someone is "just be a servant." I'll explain...
A few months ago, I was working on reaching out to churches for support. For some reason we had hit a lull in new monthly commitments from family and friends and I was feeling the pressure to raise more support. I was calling churches, emailing churches, leaving voicemails, sending out support packets with a letter written and addressed to each church specifically. I wasn't getting any responses of any kind. I was starting to get a little irritated, thinking to myself... "Of all people we've contacted, you'd think a church would respond -- even if it's a 'no'! At least call me or email be back!"
At the same time, I was reading a book called Revolution in World Missions by K.P. Yohannan, founder of Gospel for Asia. In this book he describes his journey as a refugee from a small Indian village to Founder and President of Gospel for Asia. In one of the chapters he wrote about his frustration as he was traveling the United States trying to raise support for Gospel for Asia. He described how he would go to a church and preach a sermon, only to find that the lunch after the service that the pastor treated him to cost more than what was given in the offering that day for his ministry. He had what I would refer to as a meltdown. I'll let you read it right from the book...
Just be a servant. The burden is light, I'm making it heavy. Wow! This was a huge breakthrough for me! We haven't carried a burden since I read this. Of course we need to take action. We need to call people and ask them to pray about supporting us, but the burden is light. God's got the heavy lifting.
So if you're reading this and you haven't received a support packet, we would love it if you would let us know. Our "sales pitch" is not painful. We will not be calling you ten times a day. We will not follow up to make sure you got the information and wonder why you haven't signed up. We'll ask two things of you: 1) read over the support packet, and 2) pray about what God would have you do. If He says, "not now", then move on. But if He gives you the green light, it will be a privilege to carry this light burden with you.
