Wow, what a crazy and fun week. I’ve had some time to look back and reflect on the journey to where we are today, but not much. As I write this we only need 5 people to give $15/month and we will have reached our 75% goal before deadline. Wow. The way things have been going, that may actually change before I finish this blog. It has been a miracle after miracle kind of month.
Lindsay and I had about 50% of our budget raised and we talked about how we were going to show God that we appreciated what He was doing to help us. We obviously tithe on everything we earn and even up to the gross, not the net. That’s a given if you are a Christian. Yes, God can get money from the mouth of a fish, but He won’t need to if we do what He has asked us to. We decided that as we reach each 20% mile marker we need to give $20/month to another missionary who is trying to raise their own budget. Well, we had passed 40% and decided to add 2 missionaries that we knew personally. Once we did that, our increase came in at crazy speeds and from unforeseen places. God was proving all sorts of things to us and really just blessing us like crazy.
We had a deadline to reach 60% and we finally blew past that and hit 65%. Wow, we were going into camp season and summer and everything else that brings and were just so happy to have gotten there. We were given a 3 month extension to reach 75%. Ok, that seemed doable at the rate everything was happening. Well, summer was decent with a few people joining our support team, but it wasn’t what we were needing. We were 40 days from our deadline and we posted that we needed 40 people to do $15/month to reach our goal by deadline.
Sadly, we had taken a little too much time to decide who that 3rd missionary we were going to add was. Not that we did it on purpose, but we had just been very busy and distracted and very stressed. One day about 20 days out, I messaged Lindsay about a particular missionary. She laughed because she was looking at their facebook page at that very moment. Ok, no questions, we added them that day.
So, we were leaving for General Council still sitting at 66% and in need of a miracle. We had just added that 3rd missionary and wow, God began to do some amazing things. In a week where I wasn’t able to really do much as far as support raising God increased our support by about $200. Talk about 10 times return on investment. It hasn’t stopped either. We are now 9 days away from our deadline and only need $75/month more. That’s a miracle. God has done a miracle for us.
Why do I call it a miracle…because I’m not very good at raising support. Trust me, there’s plenty of proof to support that statement. In spite of me, God has provided. He told me He would provide for our budget through prayer and it is working. He is doing it.
Now, some would say that I’m saying I give so I can get from God. No, I give out of obedience. I give, because He has commanded me to give. I give, because the more I get to know Him I love and trust Him all that much more. I find pleasure in giving regardless of what comes in for us. During the tough times when we were struggling and there was no increase (we’ve had months and months of that), we continued to give because there is no other option. Not giving our tithe and now our missions faith promises is not an option. I can cut out amenities before I cut out giving, because He can provide for me better on 10% income(which He did) than I can provide for myself on 100%.
Lindsay and I are humbled by every gift given to us. We are humbled by the $5 and the $250. They are the same to God who requires equal sacrifice not equal gifts. We have decided that as time goes on and we pass the 100% mark we will work towards a different goal. Our finances will look like this. We will tithe our 10% on the gross. We will give 10% to missions, and we will put 10% in some sort of savings/retirement. If we can learn to live on the 70% then as God increases not only will we be able to increase for ourselves some nice things, but we will be able to increase our giving. At current numbers and depending upon our Faith Promise amount for each missionary we will be able to support at least 20 missionaries personally and hopefully more. As God increases for us, maybe we can just give them each a raise every year. How awesome would that be?
That’s just how we do it and the journey we are on. I wish I had all sorts of Bible verses to support these things. I know there are some, and as I learn more about Biblical giving I will possibly change some of the things we do and how we do them, but right now, I’m so excited about being able to give back to God. He is fun to give to, because He can always do crazy things with what little we give to Him.