Comments on: Transitioning From Fundraising to Tentmaking

By: C. Holland

C. Holland — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 20:11:17 +0000

@Reformed Trader: In our case, it was 50% funds/50% immigration issues. I believe the future of missions (in most cases) will be people taking work in a country, working alongside nationals, but still with the mission mind and directive.

By: Reformed Trader

Reformed Trader — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 21:39:31 +0000

Thanks for the honesty that comes through in your posts, MC. Would you say that raising funding is the most difficult thing about staying overseas? How do you think aspiring missionaries can plan ahead to deal with this?

By: C. Holland

C. Holland — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 21:10:03 +0000

@J Paul and Edna: Thank you so much for your encouragement and prayers. May God make it ever clear His will in your support and direction in missions.

By: J Paul & Edna Zacharias

J Paul & Edna Zacharias — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 17:51:22 +0000

Thank you for your honest and insightful blog…will pray for you today – asking the Lord to guide you and Bless your tent making venture…We have agreed to join a mission as Member Care co-ordinators – and going in faith, raising our support. Our home church has given us their blessing and endorsed us to the mission… but is unable to support us financially as the Church has gone through some major upheaval with all the Pastors leaving last year and is starting new with new staff and considerably less people.
We are at the cross roads where we too are considering tent making…for us it may be going out to do catastrophe adjusting for part of the year and then heading out….but this will not lend itself well to being staffers with a mission…God knows…

By: C. Holland

C. Holland — Tue, 04 May 2010 11:51:16 +0000

@Kevin: Our situation is so similar. When we left the States a few years back, we too had to convince an American client about us working remotely with them. It’s turned out really well, and they no longer seem uncomfortable with us being so far away and on a different time zone. And yes, we’ll still continue communication to people in the US about what we do in ministry. It’d be nice to hear from them, too, but that’s a different subject.

Glad to hear you’ll be blogging again. I’d wondered where you went!

By: Kevin

Kevin — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 22:03:55 +0000

C,
Great to hear your thoughts on this subject. We’re winding down our last few weeks of details before arriving back in Europe. 3/4 of our support is coming from my computer work with a company that is taking a chance of having me work remotely. The other 1/4 is from individuals and sending churches. After our initial work in Ireland on 100% support I can fully attest to the strain of what you were describing. Leaving on extended furloughs for visits/support raising is not fun. In fact it’s not time off at all, its work. My prayer now is that we can fully invest in the work without the weight of support worries around our neck, plus visits with friends and family can be enjoyable again.

I would temper my comments with this however: No matter what we do we must also continue to minister to people in the U.S. through our service. Your blog and communications is a good example of this. Keep it up.

Once things settle down a bit I’ll be back in the blogging saddle.
.-= Kevin´s last blog ..FSJ on the iPad: Sad but true… =-.

By: C. Holland

C. Holland — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 17:11:22 +0000

@Kathy: It’s all been about faith and God clearly doing something from Day 1; we wouldn’t have even started this process if it weren’t. We can see it, a handful of others see it, the rest of our “fellow Christians” have a veil over their eyes and refuse to see that missions can also be outside the 10/40 window. Due to this unfortunate attitude, we always knew this would be a struggle over the long term.

And because of our fears of throwing that “baby” out with the bathwater, it’s why we’ve spent extra time calling on God and examining our hearts to make sure we weren’t trying to avoid traditional fundraising. I’m glad others are still blessed and supported in this way; it’s just a different path for us, now.

By: Kathy

Kathy — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:47:40 +0000

I admire your faith that it is still God’s will for you to be there even when your fellow Christians are not coming up with the money! That must be hard. Hope those who DO support your work (albeit not monetarily) will keep praying for you and you’ll keep sending prayer fodder to them. To me, this is the real guts of “support” because your own strength, hard work, intelligence, cultural insight etc is not enough, as I’m sure you know! Unless God’s doing something and you’re closely following him, it’s all a waste of time, right? I’m not saying you’re guilty of any of this (on the contrary, you DO seem to be closely following him), just cautioning you not to throw the baby out with the…
May God keep you strong for him and get the Body filling in whatever parts it is supposed to in your case…and keep appreciating them, too.
I used to think I’d be a tent-maker (I was an ESL teacher in my former life!!) and hated the idea of begging people for what seemed like lots of money, but where we are I realised there’s NO WAY I could earn money there (we’re in a remote, farming community: the only “paid” people are two government teachers and they don’t even get paid half the time). Plus, it never actually has seemed like begging – the funds have rolled in…but we’ve only been in the field for five years and have very low expenses: all extremely different circumstances to you. And no broadband, not even network . But trips to the city are great!
Thanks for sharing, it’s great to envisage your experience.

By: C. Holland

C. Holland — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 20:14:12 +0000

@Tai Fu: God will make a way. Praying His will in this for you.

By: tai fu

tai fu — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 14:47:22 +0000

The only problem for me is I only started out with this translating and proofreading/copyediting thing, and I haven't really have much contacts at all, so I am really praying that things will come my way that will help me do tent making wherever I am at. I hear there are demands for those work but I don't really see much and most websites that specializes in translation doesn't have much jobs other than last minute rush jobs (which I won't do). .-= tai fu´s last blog ..New host =-.