Missionary Confidential

Fundraising: The Extreme Edge of Faith

A Christian friend recently asked what it’s like to live day-to-day on a fundraised missionary budget. Once I assured her that we haven’t gone without the necessities and God has richly provided for us throughout our entire time here, I gave her the following analogy:

It’s like taking a job where the boss tells you that you cannot know how much you will be paid each month. It can swing wildly without warning, by thousands sometimes, and it’s not dependent on how hard you work. Essentially, you open the envelope every month, draw in a deep breath, and wonder what you’ll get. Meanwhile, the exchange rate guarantees that the cost of usually fixed expenses (like rent) will go up and down, too; another thing you cannot know ahead or control. While budgeting is a nice concept, it’s not always practical.

We’ve lived this way the entire time we’ve been in the mission field, and I’d be lying to say it’s easy. It’s not. Even when we have a good month, it makes it hard to consider purchasing anything extra. That voice in your head starts whispering, “what if you need this surplus money next month?” Meanwhile, it seems like all economic chaos has broken loose throughout the globe. Stories pour in about people losing jobs and houses, while churches are losing substantial income. It can all be incredibly gloomy, especially when we’re so very dependent on the generosity of others and our visa here does not allow us to legally take a job.

So, coming into the holiday season we mentally prepared ourselves that times might get tighter for us, people might reel back their giving, and we certainly wouldn’t expect anyone to send us anything extra for Christmas. Not a problem as we have what we need to eat, etc.

But we were wrong.
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If You Do Only One Thing Today…

“Being faithful to Jesus Christ is the most difficult thing we try to do today. We will be faithful to our work, to serving others, or to anything else; just don’t ask us to be faithful to Jesus Christ. Many Christians become very impatient when we talk about faithfulness to Jesus. Our Lord is dethroned more deliberately by Christian workers than by the world. We treat God as if He were a machine designed only to bless us, and we think of Jesus as just another one of the workers.”
—Oswald Chambers, “My Utmost For His Highest,” December 18

When We Can’t Be Honest, God Gets the Blame

“God’s leading me in a new direction,” they’ll tell the congregation, but privately their admission to me will be, “I just couldn’t cope,” or “my family was so frustrated,” or even “the ministry wasn’t what I thought it was supposed to be.”

As a longtime Christian, I’ve been witness to many public explanations of why a leader or minister is either moving on to another (or moving out of) ministry. To be honest, they often smack of secular corporate memos that attempt to explain why a coworker is leaving: “Joan is exploring new career options, and we wish her all the best in her future endeavours.” Meanwhile, all the lackeys know that Joan was fired for ineptitude.

It’s become apparent that a good majority of the missionaries that I’ve watched leave the field easily fall into the categories of “this wasn’t what I thought it was” or “I didn’t fit in”. Fair enough. Missions ministry is not for everyone. And, hey, at least you tried, stepped out in faith, and probably learned a lot about yourself in the process. Leaving is not always a bad thing. Read More…