Stepping out, again

Not that this is only the second time we’ve done this, but my wife and I are stepping out again.

As my previous post notes, my wife recently quit her job. Consequently, I am in the M-DAT office full-time now. This is awesome, however — however, we are no where near full support. I’m working in the office on a reduced salary funded by our reserve account. This account is there to make up for short months.

And it is doing just that. The problem comes later this year, when the account will run dry if we don’t see significant new support early in 2007. My wife suggested we consider using the George Mueller approach to fundraising, although not exclusively, as we approach this second 50% of our minimum support requirement. Mueller prayed and didn’t “ask.” The more modern approach, which we like and aspire to in theory and in practice, involves face-to-face meetings and specific asks. We worked at this method for years. We met face-to-face with more than 140 people in, if I recall correctly, about 18 months. Some of those experiences I’ve already documented here.

We did this despite a slump in the economy. We did it despite not getting significant contributions from the two or three potential major donors on our mailing list. We did it despite knowing that a lot of our friends already gave to other people in this ministry (there exists a significant friend “overlap”). We jumped in knowing little or nothing would come from my wife’s childhood churches as many missionaries rely on — her churches being Southern Baptist, which rarely give outside of their own IMB. M-DAT is not part of the IMB, or any other denomination.

Here we go again! With a renewed sense of M-DAT’s importance in the scheme of Kingdom work, we step out on to the fundraising plank. I find myself questioning the existance of water under the plank, though. While there are a number of contacts on our list we’ve yet to approach face-to-face, they are spread out and travel is hard to warrant (some on the desolate plains of eastern Montana).

A few of these people I tried to contact via letters and phone calls. Success was limited at best. Other people we thought would begin giving by now have not, even with occassional reminders.

Where do we go now? With everything else so encouraging, how do we reconcile our lackluster support level? Questions of doubt inevitably creep in: Is it sin in my life? Are we supposed to be doing this? Is our budget out of line?

All of this to say we’re stepping out again. God, let there be water under this plank!