Proposing

I didn’t realize how much work it was going to take to write our proposal for ministry. It’s been so long since I’ve had to write anything that needed editing, revising and clarifying, and I think I’m really out of practice. Even our resumes have not had this much editing! I’m learning that the proposal needs to be concise yet informative, interesting yet honest, and personal yet professional. I’ve had a few people look it over in different ways, and Sam keeps re-reading it and pointing out things to clarify. It could have been done several months ago, but I have a lot of starts and stops, and I sometimes forget to work on it.

I am a little nervous about having anyone involved directly in a church read it, besides family, because I don’t want them to get a bad impression of us based on lack of information. On the other hand, I need some pastoral perspective. If there are any pastors that we know who’d be interested in just reading it and giving feedback, knowing that it’s not a final copy yet, please leave a comment on our “Questions” page and make sure you give a valid email address with your comment (in the email box, not in the comment itself). We will not release your email address!

Writing a proposal for churches is kind of like a dance. You know where you want to go, but churches are often very different about what they will ask or what they are looking for in missions organizations to support. I want to answer as many questions as possible but not be long or boring, but I also know that I can’t think of everything. I know it’s also a lot like interviewing for a job, because the presentation isn’t the only thing that matters. It’s also your qualifications, and whether they think you are worth the risk.

I’m very excited, because I know that finishing the proposal and related materials will mean that we are finally on to the next big step of fundraising, which is hopefully going to get us going very quickly!

Speaking of Poverty

So many people in the world want to discuss poverty. There are panels filled with rich people thinking of solutions to poverty, and there are many Christians who want to talk about it. But that seems to be all that the majority of people ever do, they talk. They have lots of pretty solutions, they even have pithy sayings and use Bible quotes, but rarely do you ever see anyone actually doing something about poverty.

Some of my favorite historical figures and even modern figures are people who walked the walk to change the situation of many impoverished people. Not all of them are Christians, but I admire their determination to do something about poverty, rather than sit on the sidelines and discuss it.

I just received a copy of the book The Power of Half by Kevin and Hannah Salwen, and even though I haven’t read it yet, I know a little about the story. It’s about a family who decided, at the urging of their teenage daughter, to give away half of their money to help poor villages in Ghana, and who want to do even more to change the world. They decided to stop letting “stuff” have power over them, and learned to give it all away. Sounds like a very exciting story, which I’ll be reading shortly.

Our original purpose for our ministry was to establish a marriage coaching ministry for struggling and new marriages. We are still going to do that. But we’ve recently felt the urge to expand into even greater things, not to eradicate poverty in an area of the Middle East, but to change how people treat the poor. We have been putting together a plan to start a mobile food bank, and we’re hoping to find like-minded Christians who want to start impacting their country by changing the attitudes of people around them.

When we’ve visited in the past, I’ve been struck by the utter apathy, and sometimes even anger, by Christian people toward poor and homeless. I’m sure the attitude in the US isn’t much different, but we don’t have to look at it every day, either. Things haven’t changed a whole lot for the poor and homeless, and many beggars will take up their seat each day knowing that they will be ridiculed by most people, but hoping that someone will come along and help them just a little bit.

Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” (Acts 3.6)

I don’t have the kind of faith Peter had, but I hope to have the boldness to pray for people on the side of the road, and also to stop and simply give them something. I know that many people who beg are looking for something for nothing, but God is generous, and as a follower of Christ, I ought to be generous. Just because someone is going to use the money I give them to do something I may not like doesn’t mean I should never be willing to give. A gift that has strings attached is no longer a gift at all. Jesus was exceedingly generous; He gave His life for everyone, even those who do not accept it. Generosity isn’t about giving only to those people who deserve it, it’s about freely giving no matter what a person’s story is. After all, don’t you hope that people will be generous with you if you are in need, no matter why?

Sam and I were discussing this subject this morning, specifically how we would like to start talking to people in the churches to make them uncomfortable with the status quo on poverty. He told me that basically, helping the poor is rarely discussed within the church walls. I’m sure that Americans aren’t much different in that, but in our own church, the topic of helping the poor comes up frequently, and in fact, about 50-75% of my own mom’s job at the church is helping poor families take care of their small children and meet simple needs for them. I feel a little guilty sometimes that we as a family aren’t doing more to help those who have less than us, but we are giving away about 50-75% of our possessions over the course of the next 8 months in order to make our move, and we are intentionally going to live with less, and using a portion of our future home as a gathering place for volunteers and storing food for handing out.

I’m not saying this to brag, because I feel that there is plenty more that we could do. Jesus had no home, he accepted donations and then gave much of it away. He is the Owner of everything, and yet in His earthly life, possessed nothing, as I was reminded in church this morning. I know that there are many poor and homeless people in America, but I hope that what I’ve written has made you consider giving at least a small portion to help the poor in the Middle East and change your reaction to people you see begging on the streets in your own city.

Half.

Last night at church, our pastor was talking about why the Gospel is “good news for the poor,” and the fact that it is really the only good news most poor people get in their lives. The poor often struggle to get out of their situation, and in most cases, they cannot move themselves up to a better station in life without a tremendous amount of help. He also reminded us that our church is a “both-and” church, and that we don’t focus on just the spiritual or the material when it comes to our faith, but on both.

He also spoke about a story of a family who gave away half of the profit from their 1.6 million dollar home to help people in Ghana, even though they had never even been there before. Their story is described in a book called The Power of Half by Hannah and Kevin Salwen. Now, I don’t know if the family are Christians or not, but their story is one of generous giving, and that is a big part of being a Christian, so it really made me think about how we live and how to change our own lifestyle in order to give away more of our time and money to help others.

By the standards of the world, our family is “rich,” even though by the current standards in America, we are considered poor. In fact, we are incredibly blessed to be taken care of in many ways, but we do struggle with meeting many of our “needs” due to a serious lack of finances. Even though we struggle to get the things we need sometimes, we also have a lot of things in our home that we don’t need. We’ve not put a moratorium on buying or bringing things home, but we are beginning a process of paring down our possessions that is in many ways rather painful and tedious, but in other ways, very freeing.

We aren’t living it yet, but we’ve committed ourselves to a future “nomadic” life. We will be leaving this house, and we do not plan to consider anywhere our permanent home from then on. We may stay somewhere for months, or years even, but we do not want to have the kind of accumulation we’ve had while we’ve lived here.

At the beginning of Lent, I (Abby) started a project that Sam will be helping with when he  has time, which is to get rid of everything in this house that we do not need or use. I started, of all places, in our linen closet, which one year ago was packed tightly with every kind of soap, medicine, and piece of randomness that we didn’t have a place for, and even though I had cleaned  it out a little and “organized” it (I use that term very loosely), I was still able to get rid of half of the stuff in there. I filled a trash bag with things that need to be trashed, and I have an assortment of things that are ready to go to new homes. Most of it will go to a charity store, but some is going to go to friends or others who might have more use for it than I do.

During the Lent season, my substitute for fasting is to get rid of the clutter in my life that keeps me from having peace. Part of the idea of this is that when the clutter is gone, it will give our family the freedom to give away more of our time and energy to serving Jesus. We probably won’t make much money out of this, and honestly, that’s not really the goal, even though a few extra bucks toward our ministry fund would be awesome. But the real goal is to provide us the ability to GO when He says go. He’s probably been saying it for a long time, but the noise in our heads from all this clutter keeps us from hearing clearly.

Honestly, I hope we can get rid of well over half of the things we have in our house. I hope we can get rid of something closer to 75% of it, because most of it is sucking energy out of us, not just taking up space. I really want to live in a radically different way than the rest of the people in the world who are “rich.” We don’t want to take a vow of poverty, or make my children’s lives difficult because they don’t actually have enough, but we need to consider how little actually is “enough” and how God really wants us to live, not just for ourselves, but for Him and for others as well.

Waiting

One of the most difficult parts about preparing for overseas ministry is waiting. We have to patiently wait for God’s timing, and often, we may miss a window of opportunity because of lack of timing on our part, while other times, we just don’t really see what God is doing and end up having to wait longer than we expected because we rushed ahead without Him.

This is all to say that we cannot know what is going to happen in the future, but we know that God has said he has plans for us. We had originally made plans to move into our new ministry sometime in the mid-summer, but now we are cautiously and patiently waiting out a series of events that, to the whole world, were wholly unexpected.

I’m speaking of the events taking place in the Middle East and North Africa, because that is where our ministry is going to be. We had no expectation that the people of these nations would all wake up at the same time to the injustice that has been taking place in their nations for the last half-century or so. It is truly an amazing, awe-inspiring, and exciting thing to watch. But we are not there taking part in this amazing history, even though we long to be there.

Because of the unrest, and because of the uncertainty of future governments, we have postponed our move until the end of this year or the beginning of next. We will likely move in the middle of a school year, and while that could pose some issues that we were hoping to avoid by moving in the summer, we have to do what is best. We are going to continue to raise funds, and I am actually right in the middle of working on our proposals, which should be finished by the end of February and ready to be presented to churches and individuals. I will also be working on a newsletter PDF to email to friends and family who are interested in reading it.

If you are part of our ministry group on Facebook, I’d like to send it to you as well. Send an email to the one provided in the group info page, with the subject “Newsletter.” If you have already signed up or emailed us, I have your information, so you don’t need to send it again!

For those who have already committed to our support, we hope that you can begin as soon as possible with your three-year commitment. We have a designated bank account, and will have a variety of immediate expenses once we arrive in our new home. We will need a fund to start our ministry off well. If you haven’t yet committed, but would like to, please indicate that in an email to the address mentioned above (on the group info page).

We would love for others to also continue to pray for the Middle East and North Africa as the people struggle to find peace and justice in a lasting way, and that the new governments of some of these nations would not be corrupted by greed and hunger for power. Thank you for partnering with us in prayer and financial support.

Abby & Sam

Our Ministry Goals for 2011

In the coming year, we have some large goals to accomplish, many of which can only be accomplished through prayer. I wanted to share the goals we have that are related to our ministry plans.

Goal #1 is only indirectly related, but we have prayed about this and decided that the best decision is to sell our house. We are not certain that it will sell, we are not certain how everything will work out, but we do know that practically speaking, it is what looks like the best option right now. We need lots of help to get it sale ready, and a lot of pray-ers.

Goal #2 is to find churches who will support us in our ministry. We need to write up proposals, and we are pretty new at this, so we may need some help. If anyone would like to volunteer to help us, it would be greatly appreciated! We also need to go to churches on the weekends, so if you are interested in having us, please let us know. (see our Questions page and leave us a message, or if you are getting here from our Facebook group, send us a message on there.)

Goal #3 is for individuals to support us. We want people who hear about what we are doing to help us by giving us a monthly donation if they are interested in supporting us in our ministry.

Goal #4 is for us to have a newsletter every quarter. We plan to have a new newsletter out in January, then April, July, and October.

Goal #5 is to have a monthly Open House where people can come and ask questions and hear our story. We haven’t scheduled these ahead of time, but we will plan for one each month. If you are around the Columbus, Ohio area, and can join us for an evening, usually a Friday night, please consider coming. Again, this info will be on our Facebook group.

And finally, Goal #6 is for us to move in July. This can only happen if goals 1-3 are met, but we are confident that God has His own plans, and we know that even if our plans aren’t His, He knows what is best for us.

The road ahead

About one month ago, we put together some materials to share at a Christian church convention, and our first outing as future missionaries went rather well. We did not experience much opposition from those around us, we heard lots of encouraging words. And perhaps that’s just what we needed at the beginning. I know the road is not always going to be smooth. But at least we have started walking down it, even with the potential twists and turns, and obstacles that are going to get in our way. We’ve accepted, even embraced, the potential hazards we are about to face, because it’s not new to us to face difficulties. Honestly, we’ve not faced worse than some people, but we have had good reactions to our trials so far, and so we are hopeful that we will continue to press on and have faith in this journey.

Last week, we did a Vacation Bible School and it was our first money-raising adventure. We were asked to come, we did not really seek out the church, so what I think is positive about that is that God is really moving and pulling us in the direction he wants us to go. We haven’t set up our permanent account for the funds, because we’re not entirely sure what to do there, and have heard many mixed reviews on the best way to go about being missionaries, with regards to how our money is handled. For now, we have placed it in an account that we hadn’t been using frequently, especially not in the last few years. So it is there and it is about 1% of what we need to have saved for our first portion of our funding. We will basically be using one-time donations to fill up our “buffer fund” that will help us to get off the ground running and praying for people to be long-term supporters that will keep us from draining the savings.

But we will be talking to a lot of people to give us the advice we need to make the right decisions regarding how we save our money.

What now?

Today has been a whirlwind day. Sam lost his job today through a series of events that is too hard to explain in a short paragraph. But through it all, we have both had a sense of peace mingled with fear and urgency.

One of the biggest questions is: What does this mean? Is it spiritual warfare? Is it our chance to push our move forward by a whole year? What does it mean for us financially? Can we raise support in three months, or should we wait a year still? What about our finances in the meantime?

We’ve already had friends show us their support. One has offered us a van (ours is broken down–I think that’s called Murphy’s Law.), others have offered any support they can give. Family is on our side and is certainly ready and able to help us financially even for a short time. We have been blessed by God to have people around us who care enough to call us up and pray for us and even start a Facebook petition!

The questions of today are not easily answered. God is not an Eight-ball that we can shake and find our answer right away. We have to keep asking and keep waiting and keep listening. But we certainly don’t have to sit on our behinds until he does something. We have taken today to reflect and pray, but beyond today, we have a plan of action to at least help us ride out the summer if we have to wait for a job.

Is this warfare? If it is, it certainly hasn’t worked in Satan’s favor. We are confident that God WILL move, he will act. He will guide us in the right direction, and if that direction is moving in 3 months, then that is what we will do. If he wants us in Egypt this September, he will provide the support we need to get there.

In the meantime, we ask that our friends and family will pray and ask God to give us clear direction from here. This is strange water we are treading, and we are asking for clarity.

Bumps in the road

I realized this morning how easy it is for us to get knocked off the track that God puts us on, especially if we aren’t paying attention. Psalm 119:105 says “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.” Basically, God only gives us enough “light” for the next step. But if we aren’t looking into that light, we might fall into something messy.

This past few weeks have been messy, and in all honesty, there is a major spiritual element to that. Sure, the circumstances are physical, obvious and there’s a human element that is unmistakable, but there are spiritual forces at work behind this, and this is only the beginning of a long road that will be filled with obstacles. Will we be ready for them?

Ephesians 6:10-18 tells us how to withstand the spiritual forces that ally against us:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

We know there will be more battles ahead. We know that this road is not clear and easy, but we will not let “the spiritual forces of evil” defeat us, when God has already won.

Please pray for protection throughout our time of preparation and that we would not lose sight of the path we are on, that we would focus on the light in front of us to guide our steps.

Refocus

I (Abby) found a great blog today while looking at information on starting a ministry, and it is a lot to take in at once. The blog is called Rich Christian, Poor Christian, and it has been challenging me a lot, because we have a lot of financial things to wade through in order to “go.” One post that I’m going to steal, mostly because it’s really short and to the point, is called 4 Steps to Refocus Your Big Idea. It is unbelievably simple, yet ultimately one of the most challenging things you will have to do. The steps (without explanation–go check out the blog for that) are:

1. Clean House
2. Quit
3. Concentrate
4. Be Accountable

Usually I’m not up for steps or methods, but these steps really make sense, and when you are considering a major move or career change (or both!), major lifestyle changes and sacrifices are often required. Getting into a mindset of living differently, doing things purposefully, and being considerate of your future goals is a big deal, and again, when you are going to be making a major change in the near future, one of the greatest things you can do is refocus all your free resources toward that change in order to make the transition easier. Getting caught up in little distractions is easy, but when you want to get something accomplished, those little distractions can become big hinderances.

What we believe-1

There will be several posts with this title, so I’m putting a number to them. This being the first, I thought I should start with the obvious.

Sam and I are Christians. We have been attending a Vineyard church, me for the past 15 years, Sam for the last 7. In college, we attended Church of Christ/Christian Church fellowships and the college we attended was also a Church of Christ school. I’m sorry about keeping the information slightly vague, this is to protect our ministry, as we are going to be in a highly volatile part of the world, where Christianity is not exactly welcome or accepted by the majority.

As Christians, though, we believe in the resurrected Christ, who died to save the world from sin. We have a literal understanding of the gospels, and we believe that Jesus wants all Christians to spread the gospel message throughout the world. We believe that the gospel is for everyone. We believe that Jesus did not just come to give us a pass to heaven, but to change us here on earth. We strongly believe that this heart change leads to personal change, and our main goal in ministry is to reach people’s hearts in order to allow Christ Jesus to change them from the inside out.

We believe, and have seen, that people can be radically changed by accepting Christ into their lives. We believe that Jesus is not just providing us with “fire insurance,” but that he wants to see people make a difference in the world right now. In our ministry, we pray and hope to see people bring their whole lives under Jesus’ reign, in order to bring about real change and freedom from sin.