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Tag: raising financial support

Raising Financial Support: Voices from Around the Web

January 28, 2021January 27, 2021Leave a comment
Reading Time: 4 minutes

raising financial support

Raising financial support can mess with your head.

Yes, it can feel a little…naked. Yes, it can be awkward and revealing and exhausting. read more

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Recently I sat with another missionary, stocking f Recently I sat with another missionary, stocking feet curled beneath us. We were reflecting on some of the more painful parts of missionary life.

I'm talking things that were hard to understand if you hadn't been overseas, hadn't had moments in a foreign land defined by sacrifice or loss. They were like scars, covered by clothing. 

It reminded me, actually, of pregnancy, then having children.

After my first child was born, I stood in my mother’s kitchen talking with my sister, who was at that time still childless. We discussed things that didn’t work quite as before since I’d had a baby. (There were more than one.) That conversation was even before a C-section scar frowned over my abdomen. 

Let’s just say I lack some physical functionality, some beauty, some parts that will never bounce back to their taut little selves.

(And that’s just the physical side of having kids.) 

My sister asked, her face a mixture of horror and disbelief, “Why would you do that to your body?”

She was asking the right question. 

I recounted this to my friend before she went overseas. Why would we do this to our bodies, our souls, our emotions, our families, our careers? 

Right question. Friends, he is so worthy. 

You may well encounter disease or traffic accidents or lack of top-shelf care for your special-needs child. Someone may die in your arms. You may be bribed by police or even taken into prison. You may miss your niece growing up or your dad’s 60th birthday party. Friends will overwhelm your heart, and then you will say goodbye to them. Poverty may reveal itself in ways you can never un-see. 

And it’s likely you’ll come home both in awe of who you’ve seen God to be…and with God-sized question marks only to be answered in Heaven. 

I told my friend that having my old body, my old self back could never be worth the trade. (It wasn’t that spectacular in comparison anyway.) My scars mark where G https://www.goservelove.net/going-overseas-scars/
I cram more things into the suitcase, carefully wr I cram more things into the suitcase, carefully wrapping breakable items in shirts and sweaters.  Piles of our life slowly disappear into the large box that will zip closed and be wheeled through the airport.  The items of our life pushed and squeezed into 10 pieces of luggage: We are leaving tomorrow.

I have trouble carrying the weight of this. 

We’ve known the date for 12 weeks and yet it still seemed to surprise us in the end.  The rush to buy the last-minute items, to see if we had all that we needed.  Did you buy a gift for that person? Do you think we need an extra one of these?  The careful planning and eleventh-hour buys all jumble together, pushed and prodded to make space.

We are leaving tomorrow and I am ready and I am not.  The time has been so sweet, the visit so right.

Yet my life, our life, is somewhere else right now and we long to return there.  This would all be much easier if we didn’t have to say goodbye.

A fitful sleep, an incessant alarm, and now we leave today.  Find all the small details, the hair bands and playing cards.  Make sure to clean up and straighten and organize.  Eat a good meal, probably should be vegetables.  Pack the toothbrushes in a carry-on.  Did you pack the charger?

We’re leaving today. And as long as I only think about leaving, I will be sad.  When I think about the going-to, what we are returning to in the place where our life really exists, then I have something to look forward to.

One last photo all together. We ride to the airport and we say again what a great time this was.

Next the suitcases, with all our things and our best-laid plans, are checked away. We are left with our backpacks, literally the packs on our backs, and our toothbrushes, and the hope that it will all turn out alright.

We say a last goodbye.  It’s okay to cry, liquid emotion as evidence that this is hard.

The leaving doesn’t get easier.  We always miss those we love. (More https://www.goservelove.net/leaving/
What keeps you going when nothing else is making s What keeps you going when nothing else is making sense?

When you live and work in a country and a culture you didn’t grow up in, but have adopted? When everything is hard to understand? When you aren’t sure you are communicating? When the cost/benefit ratio of missions feels fuzzy or downright disappointing?

Missionaries wrestle with that question somewhat regularly. I wrestle with that regularly.

Our small team had been working with these rural pastors and lay leaders for a couple of years, attempting to bring them resources and training that would help them serve their people and teach their congregations to walk as Jesus would want them to walk.

Periodically in this ministry, we welcomed groups of youth and adults who came down from supporting churches in the U.S. to spend a week. It took a lot of thinking and planning to create a situation which we felt would be a blessing to the churches we worked with and to the group coming down.

The groups completed work projects for four hours each morning, then showed the JESUS film each evening where our churches were trying to plant a Bible study or home church.

The churches indeed followed up with the people who they had seen at the showings of the Jesus film. And at each location they’d added 3 or 4 families to the Bible studies or home churches they were trying to start--and wanted to know how to do it year-round.

When you get to see results that clearly, it keeps you going for a good long while. It did for me!

And even today when I think back, it is a constant encouragement. God calls us to serve him and others, and he is the one who creatively weaves the threads of ministry to produce what he calls success. (Photo: IMB.org)

https://www.goservelove.net/what-keeps-you-going-the-successes-we-remember/
It's the first step, and one of the hardest to dis It's the first step, and one of the hardest to discern: How can you tell if you're experiencing the call from God to be a missionary? How does God speak, and guide people overseas?

At Go. Serve. Love, we've explored this idea a lot, with both warning and affirmation. How would one even define "the call"? 

One of our partners, the Center for Missionary Mobilization and Retention–using podcasts, training, and other resources–aims to increase and retain the number of long-term missionaries sent around the world.

They’ve developed a free webinar to help you sort out the call…and whether you have it. Find it at the link below.

#calling #CenterforMissionaryMobilizationandRetentionclarity #decisionmaking #discern #discernment #explore #free #globalwork #Godswill #longterm #mentor #missionary #missions #overseas #pray #prayer #resource #thecall #webinar #wisdom

https://www.goservelove.net/the-call/
Stuffed animal on the kitchen counter.  Dirty soc Stuffed animal on the kitchen counter.  Dirty socks by the back door.  Laundry on the couch.  Empty coffee cup on the bathroom counter.  Wagon on the driveway.  Library books on the floor.  

What do all of these things have in common?  (Besides the fact that they might all be true about where we are living right now.)

All of these items are out of place. They are not in their designated spot.  

Many situations can cause displacement when you’re overseas. It might be political unrest in a country, medical needs that can’t be met in a particular country or that happen while traveling, visa issues.  And COVID-19 certainly displaced many people away from the field or trying to get back to the field.

And so we will stay.  Without our winter clothes or our Christmas PJs.  We are displaced.

Do not mistake this displaced for misplaced, dear reader. 

Even when my emotions twist and turn and threaten to spill out of my eyes and down my cheeks, I know that I am not misplaced. 

My Great Father knows exactly where I am.  He hasn’t lost me or forgotten to move the mountains that needed to move. 

And what’s more, He knows why we are here. 

His purposes are not my purposes. Though I hope mine align with His, I cannot claim He will align His purposes with mine. 

And that’s a good thing.  My vision only goes so far. It tends to blur around the edges of what I understand. 

I may not have to the opportunity to understand His purpose in this time.  However, I always have the opportunity to trust.  To trust His purpose, to trust His divine will, to trust His provision, to trust His love for me. 

Perhaps, as I offer up this time and press into investing well where I am located, it will seem we are not so out of place after all. 

 #COVID19 #displaced #go #missionary #missions #outofplace #overseas #purpose #wait #waiting

https://www.goservelove.net/out-of-place-when-youre-not-where-you-thought-youd-be/
“They are going to put Bo in jail.” The phone “They are going to put Bo in jail.”

The phone call comes from my wife Leah around 6:45. “Bo pulled onto Entebbe Road after we thought the presidential convoy had finished going through, but it hadn’t. He was pulled over and now they want to impound the car. Can you come and get us?”

Bo (our son) and Leah had taken one of our staff girls to the doctor and were on their way back.

“They are going to put Bo in jail.”

The phone call comes from my wife Leah around 6:45. “Bo pulled onto Entebbe Road after we thought the presidential convoy had finished going through, but it hadn’t. He was pulled over and now they want to impound the car. Can you come and get us?”

Bo (our son) and Leah had taken one of our staff girls to the doctor and were on their way back. They just so happened to be on the same road at the same time that Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were traveling from the airport into town.

Typically, if a traffic cop in Uganda pulls you over, they either take your license or impound your car, or both, to ensure you will pay your traffic fine.

Once the fine is paid you can get your license and/or car back. I imagine this is what my wife means. I hop in our other car and head up the road to go and get them.

About 15 minutes later, I receive another call from Leah. Through tears, she says, “They are going to put Bo in jail.”

“What?”

She repeats, “They are going to put Bo in jail.”

I tell her I will be there soon, and start accelerating through the traffic.

I pull up to the police station, enter and see my wife seated in a chair in front of a desk, crying. Bo is surrounded by 4 or 5 police officers.

I start asking questions:

“What did my son do wrong?”

“Why do you need to detain him?”

“Isn’t this just a traffic violation?”

“Who is in charge?”

Today, we listen to Brent's story about when things overseas...go wrong.

http://www.goservelove.net/jail
I picked it up because I was feeling dry. The wel I picked it up because I was feeling dry.

The well-thumbed copy of Bruchko seemed to call my name from my bookshelves. I slid it from the shelf, must creeping to my nose with the satisfying feeling of an old, delicious story. 

I’ve found that a good missionary biography refreshes me, puts life back into my dry bones.

Life is like that, sucking you dry at times. Same thing each day. Good stuff, sure. But tiring.

(What breathes life into your dry days? Find out. Dry days do come.)

In my hands, the real-life tale of Bruchko came to life. It’s the story of a young Minnesotan, Bruce Olson, from a dry difficult home. Convinced God said “go”, Olson up and went”–not sure where or why.

And nothing went right.

Slowly, persistently, day after day he walked the trails Jesus drug him along in Caracas, Venezuela. Hungry, without friends, no money, living wherever he could, he kept going.

Olson was–is still, at 79–one of those tenaciously independent missionaries who didn’t plan ahead.

Interesting how God showed up.

Eventually, Olson started on the real jungle trails of the Yuko Indians. Men shooting arrows at him. Olson was ignored, struggling to find anything to do in a village he doesn’t understand, where he can’t communicate with anyone. He began learning their language.

Now to the Motilone Indians, the ones he really came to work with, the ones who really kill you, the ones not even the Yukos went near. (Spoiler: “Bruchko” is the Motilone version of Olson’s name.)

After all the pain, nasty diseases, and repeated feelings of failure–finally sweet days began to appear.

Slowly he was accepted, allowed to join the hunts. He learned their language and stumbled upon odd pieces of their culture that opened doors to understanding and even connecting.

God had hidden in the tribe’s collective memory stories that pointed to himself! Those stories left a haunting question, a missing piece that God wo https://www.goservelove.net/dry-days/
We get a distinct thrill over here in partnering w We get a distinct thrill over here in partnering with you in a small way as you look in an overseas direction. Here are the posts that seemed to resonate with you--and represent some of the best posts of 2020.

May God empower your every next move for his honor and renown.

The Go. Serve. Love Team

[LINK BELOW!]

 #2020 #bestposts #biographies #checklist #closeddoor #coronavirus #COVID #COVID19 #globalworker #infographic #Islam #missionary #missions #Muslims #overseas #podcasts #pray #preparation #prepare #racism #realities #trends #watchlist

https://www.goservelove.net/best-posts-of-2020/
Even though it was years ago, I remember it as cle Even though it was years ago, I remember it as clearly as if it were today: the year our Christmas was a sickly yellow.

It had taken me a good while to adapt to life in Ghana. After many mornings of tears--morning is when the reality of life there would hit me--I adjusted well. Life was good: The evening Bible school was off to a good start, we were getting to know our neighbors, Gary was mentoring a couple of men and I was helping Nicole, French and married to a Ghanaian, grow in her new faith.

Our world came crashing down around us when Gary got very sick. Just a couple months before he’d had typhoid fever and malaria. What was happening?

When Gary turned yellow, I guessed his diagnosis.

But borders were closed. Supplies in the country were so low that he could not even get a blood test to tell what kind of hepatitis he had.

At the time none of our colleagues were in the city. We did live near the university and knew the dean of the medical school. He started making house calls “with empty hands,” for there was nothing he could do.

Those were dark days for us as Christmas approached.

We tried to make the best of it with our two small boys, while we watched “Papa” get thinner and thinner. The bile under his skin caused severe itching and relief only came with a scalding bath followed by a cold shower.

Then Gary would sit under the ceiling fan clad only in boxer shorts––any other clothes irritated his skin. But this routine wasn’t always possible with frequent power outages and lack of water.

And we were almost out of food. He needed some good nutrition.

I was not a coffee drinker, but needed to stay awake for some “alone time” in the evenings, so learned to drink it. I was exhausted but wanted to write letters back home to people who were praying for us.

Often sitting with only the light of an oil lamp, I’d hear God speak words of comfort and peace. (Read the res https://www.goservelove.net/a-yellow-christmas-dotsies-story/
Words are powerful. Words are powerful. With Words

are

powerful.

Words

are

powerful.

With a click of the lock, the creak of the wooden door and the click of my brass mailbox…another card is ready to be picked up.

It doesn’t take long. Ten minutes at most. Each day this month I have committed to send one handwritten card to a different friend.

These aren’t your typical Christmas cards with signature and family picture. I want these cards to be filled with words that speak life to those I care about most.

With a click of the lock, the creak of the wooden door and the click of my brass mailbox…another card is ready to be picked up.

It doesn’t take long. Ten minutes at most. Each day this month I have committed to send one handwritten card to a different friend.

Instead of spending more on a gift that I wasn’t sure kids would like or that adults needed, our family choose to focus our attention on written words. Words of appreciation, affirmation, and blessing for each parent, aunt, uncle, and cousin.

My family split up the cards and worked on a few each evening after dinner. I didn’t want us to wait till the last minute or feel rushed.

Our notes included characteristics and qualities we were thankful for in the recipients–observation of talents and abilities that we saw in them, as well as reminders of who God says they are and the promises he has for them.

Ann Voskamp reminds me in Unwrapping the Greatest Gift,

"Look for the small, broken cracks in the world, in hearts, that would be easy to walk right by – and right there, slip in a little word that grows great courage. Miracles happen whenever we speak words that make souls stronger."

While you speak life-giving words here today, say a prayer for those you hope to befriend overseas.

Ask that God will prepare their hearts to receive his words of love. Pray for the ability to learn their language well so you can use new words to share the https://www.goservelove.net/words-the-gift-to-give-this-christmas/
Maybe you're in your own advent this year: Your ow Maybe you're in your own advent this year: Your own waiting. Need some truth and a few verses to hang onto? We've got four to print. Free. (Link below.) 

#2020 #advent #character #Christmas #faith #meditate #meditation #memorization #memorize #missionary #missions #overseas #patience #printable #trust #verses #wait #waiting

https://www.goservelove.net/advent/
I was leaning back in my chair at 6 AM in our spar I was leaning back in my chair at 6 AM in our spare bedroom that doubled as an office. And I was telling God how dissatisfied I was with how things were going.

I was in seminary preparing for missions. It was my second year; I loved my classes. We had spent an awesome summer in New Zealand teaching at a Bible School.

But the finances for continuing weren’t there.

"Have I ever failed you?" God seemed to be asking...as everything felt wrong. As plans felt out of place. 

Read more at the link below. #waiting #overseas #missions #missionary

https://www.goservelove.net/have-i-ever-failed-you/
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