I mentioned in my last post that mission trips are expensive. More specifically, our mission trip will cost roughly $5200. In the past I assumed that we had to have that money in the bank before we could even consider going. After all, if God meant for us to go wouldn't he bless us with a nice fat savings account to fund our trip? Then I heard our pastor preach a sermon in which he mentioned that no one should let money be the only barrier.
Now I will be honest. That just does not make sense to my analytical, accountant brain, but I called the church missions office anyway. I found out that our church does have a scholarship program for mission trips. I'm sure Bellevue is not unique in this. I'm sure that many churches have similar programs. So start there.
However, my heart sank as I heard the words "up to half." Don't get me wrong. Up to half the cost of a trip is very generous and more than we would have any right to ask for; but we simply didn't, and still don't, have even half the cost. Some families could probably cut some extras and save up the money. We are not one of those families. I'll share more about that later.
That call to the church missions office was over a year ago. When William and Amanda join the mission team to Malawi (They arrived safely by the way. Please continue to pray for them.) I found out about support letters. For those of you who are unfamiliar with support letters, they are usually sent out by individuals who are either going into the mission field long-term or going on staff with a non-profit that can not afford to pay them. Turns out, support letters can be used to raise money for short-term mission trips as well. So now the financing was at least within the realm of possibility. Now just a few final hurdles - our pride and doubt.
I hate talking about money. Okay, really I just hate talking about OUR money. As a bookkeeper, I am used to discussing other people's money - other people's debt, other people's cash flow shortages. In my mind, there is only one thing worse than having to discuss our personal finances with someone and that is having to ask someone for money. Now I would likely have to do both. Over the past few years God has really hammered away, like a master blacksmith, at my prideful heart in this area of finances. He has given me a chance to see that while, in my sin nature, I would rather not depend on Him, He is more greatly glorified in my life when I do.
Remember when I said we were not one of those families that could come up with the money by cutting some extras. Trust me, we have looked. There are no savings accounts or college funds. We have one car. We live in a modest 1032 sq.ft. home but there is not enough equity to borrow against even if we could get a loan in this economy. We have a GoPhone that I load with $15 each month. We don't eat out. We stay home during Michael's vacations. Michael and I rarely exchange gifts for birthdays, Christmas, anniversary, Mother's/Father's day, etc. Our children do not participate in activities like sports, music lessons or dance (unless Grandma pays for them as a Christmas gift). They get three presents each at Christmas and for their birthdays they must choose between a family party at home with presents or a party with friends at one of the traditional birthday spots with NO presents. As a general rule, we don't buy convenience meals, snack foods, lunch meat or the expensive breakfast cereals. We recently had a garage sale and sold everything I could possibly scrounge up to pay for Michael's passport. If there is a penny to be pinched I have pinched it. In fact, I have dug sticky ones out of the car, washed them and rolled them. I am not complaining. I am very grateful for everything that we have and I know that compared to people in the inner city and most of the rest of the world we live very comfortably. I am sharing these details because I want you to feel assured that we tightened our budget before sending out support letters.
So I began to compose our letter and compile a list of family and friends. I picked up the forms from the church that needed to be mailed with each letter. I even had my mom take a family picture, so I could mail it with the letters. While doing these things my mind was filled with thoughts like - "The economy is terrible, no one will give." Or "People will view this trip as frivolous. No one will give." And "What can you really accomplish in 11 days. No one will give." I had to take these thoughts captive and remind myself that we are only responsible for obeying God. We were responsible for laying down our pride and sending the letters. God is responsible for what people do with them.
I mailed the letters Monday.
Autumn
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