Three observations from the NRB convention

I just returned from a convention where three things stuck in my mind after conversations with people. I’m just passing my observations along, not necessarily with commentary.

* I had dinner one evening with a group of people affiliated with a well-known youth ministry. I had spoken earlier to three of the younger people in this group and we hit it off pretty well. At dinner, though, conversation with the ranking brass among there group was a bit discombobbled. In part, we didn’t have time to tackle the topics that were brought up, and secondly I never really understood where he was going. We were talking about missions, and he suggested that the largest “unreached people group” were the youth of the world. I have heard this before; it wasn’t a new idea to me. However, this just doesn’t fit into the way people groups are delineated, and I have to wonder if people working to evangelize youth aren’t just trying to latch onto popular missions terminology to further their own cause. And their own cause is worthy, I’m not denying this. I just don’t like to muddle such definitions which deserve and warrant as much clarity as language can give them.

Surprisingly I ran into one of the gentlemen I most respect in ministry, a man I was privileged enough to grow up around. Two things in our discussion over ice cream stood out to me.

* Pertaining to fundraising (and thus the topic of this blog), he recently stepped down as director of the Bible camp as I’ve known him for decades and assumed the role of CEO of a newly created group of para-church ministries. Essentially, he sees himself as the fundraiser for these ministries now. He told me about a challenge he learned of at a fundraising event recently where millions of dollars was at stake. From that he created his own less daunting challenge, aiming to get 100 people to each give $100,000. Since he established this goal he has seen the largest donations come in since the beginning of his tenure with this ministry (some 30 years ago). None have been single donations of $100k yet, but he is encouraged!

* He also relayed a brief anecdote about a short-term mission trip a pastor led some of his congregation on to India. My friend, via his own congregation’s work in India, has been to the country more than 10 times at this point and lovingly too issue with the nature of this particular mission trip. The pastor and his team, apparently, paid to go to India to pour a foundation. My friend’s time spent in India allowed him to suggest this was a gross misuse of money. There are in his experience many people capable but out of work who could have performed this task. Essentially, a few Americans traveled overseas (airfare probably more than $1,500 per person) to do something the locals were perfectly capable of and needed as employment.

Mission trips are an integral part of long-term missions strategy, but to do them well is important and takes time and research. See the Standards of Excellence as a good starting point to quality and relevant STMs.

Staying put and looking forward

So our house didn’t sell, and the contract on the house up north expired. Thus we will continue, gladly, working for the ministry we’re with for the next year as our new support allows.

We were hoping this year could be a more relaxing time, a year when we wouldn’t have to think about fundraising — for the first time in five years. But I quickly realized that if we completely ignored support this year we’d be at the same spot in six months as we were last year. I don’t know what to do with this knowledge, the knowledge that I “should” or “have to” keep on raising support this year. Sure, it’s expected that missionaries will spend 10% of their time every year maintaining full-time support, but when you’ve never gotten to full support the pressures are greater.

On top of this we lost $140 per month of support in the last two months of 2007. Two long-time (relative to our time in ministry) supporters gracefully discontinued their giving which totaled $200 a month, and we picked up new support to the tune of $60 a month from friends in Germany.

Last Friday we had dinner with friends on furlough. The friends relayed a very promising overseas possibility, serving in the same community they work out of for one or two years. This opportunity, though I have few details at this point, sounds very interesting to me. The regular support we do have now will go farther in this 10/40 window community, and we’re confident we could raise the necessary additional funds for an international short-term service such as this. The timing could be very good for us as well. I hope to hear back from the contacts our friends gave us this week; I sent them an introductory email on Monday.

Confusion

So our house didn’t sell, and the contract on the house up north expired. Thus we will continue, gladly, working for the ministry we’re with for the next year as our new support allows.

We were hoping this year could be a more relaxing time, a year when we wouldn’t have to think about fundraising — for the first time in five years. But I quickly realized that if we completely ignored support this year we’d be at the same spot in six months as we were last year. I don’t know what to do with this knowledge, the knowledge that I “should” or “have to” keep on raising support this year. Sure, it’s expected that missionaries will spend 10% of their time every year maintaining full-time support, but when you’ve never gotten to full support the pressures are greater.

On top of this we lost $140 per month of support in the last two months of 2007. Two long-time (relative to our time in ministry) supporters gracefully discontinued their giving which totaled $200 a month, and we picked up new support to the tune of $60 a month from friends in Germany.

Last Friday we had dinner with friends on furlough. The friends relayed a very promising overseas possibility, serving in the same community they work out of for one or two years. This opportunity, though I have few details at this point, sounds very interesting to me. The regular support we do have now will go farther in this 10/40 window community, and we’re confident we could raise the necessary additional funds for an international short-term service such as this. The timing could be very good for us as well. I hope to hear back from the contacts our friends gave us this week; I sent them an introductory email on Monday.

Finding other options

This past weekend my wife and I drove up to the town of 45,000 my parents live in looking at real estate. Cost of homes is a fair amount less there (although taxes are more, so you have to find something quite a bit less to lower your mortgage payments).

Our hope is to be able to find a way to continue working part-time, as our support allows, with the ministry from a remote location. Our hope is this:

1) Sell our house.
2) Move to a larger community with more part-time employment opportunities.
3) Use profit from the sale of the house to create a less-expensive housing situation.
4) Continue working, for two to three years at least, part time with the ministry.

There is actually a possibility that my father will purchase a building where we could live rent and mortgage free! We’re working hard to see if this will work, although it presents a number of complications we have yet to face in our young married life, causing us to move forward cautiously.

There is a distinct possibility we will lose a little support if we can work this scenario out, however at this point we probably have enough to sustain part-time hours for the foreseeable future. If we can work this out it should also provide, hopefully, a less stressful period of life after these very high-stress five years past. During this recuperative time we hope my wife’s health will right itself and we’ll be able to determine our next step in life.

I know I’ve said this before, but it deserves to be said again: The support lifestyle is really very different from the non-support lifestyle. It is, at this point in my life, impossible to convey the nuances of this to people working an 8-5 job — or even working in other non-personal-support-based ministries. Someday I hope to be able to elaborate on this sentiment (some of the differences are fairly obvious). Part of our frustration is a lack of communication from people we communicate with. Seldom do we get responses from our prayer emails or newsletters.

Recently a thank you from a friend irked my wife. Her frustration stems from people who try and support us in ways other than giving financially. We know not everyone can give, but when it seems to us we communicate very clearly our need for money . . .

. . . what’s that saying? “Put your money where your mouth is.”

Or in more Biblical terminology, “Where your treasure is, there is your heart also.”

Faith rewarded?

Our finances are getting a little be touchy — not that they’ve been anything to lean on — as we come close to a time when the money seems to, very frankly, be running out. We have a number of expenses, health related mostly, that we could cut but have decided are important enough to stick with until the bitter end.

We do have health insurance, but we don’t use it. In fact we’ve never used it. The expenses related to my wife’s health are through a specialist outside of our state, and is the kind of doctor health insurance companies scoff at anyway. Costs associated with this doctor can average around than $200 or more a month. We also see a chiropractor. Before moving to work with the ministry we did this regularly, but couldn’t afford it just after moving. When I began having mild dizzy spells after sitting at length in front of a computer, which is what I do all day working with the ministry, we both (for different reasons) began seeing the back-cracker regularly again. This costs us $140 a month. And the dizzy spells haven’t returned!

We’ve been able to manage these two costs, although my wife hasn’t been taking the supplements she needs to be all of the time. But since she quit working earlier this year things have become progressively slimmer in the checkbook department.

Earlier today I moved $750 from our savings to our now meager checking account to cover some other unexpected expenses. I felt the need to see the dentist after a tooth, which has bothered me in the past, became a bit sore again. The tooth ended up being fine for now, but my wife is also in need of new glasses. We’ve gone the cheap route for glasses the past four years, but are feeling like this pair needs to be a bit more tailored. Between the dentist and new glasses we’ll easily spend $400, if not more.

Just after getting back to the office today my wife called me. She reported that the mail was just delivered, and it included two things: A large package of nonsensical papers from the health insurance company, and a personal check from one of our donors. The check was in the amount of $500. This will easily cover our dental and optic needs for the month, and should allow me to restore the money I moved from the checking account.

Such uncanny timing has happened in the past, in fact with this same donor. Her commitment is truly inspiring.

Now if we only had about five others like her, in giving and commitment!

Post fundraising trip ramble

This is our last prayer update that went to about 100 people via email:

Praise God for some new support in the last few months. Many thanks to our new and long-standing financial partners.

However, we are staring at a cliff. I’ve shared this year in earlier emails how we are using up the “reserve” fund while I work full-time, since [my wife] quit the newspaper. From the looks of it, we’ll have enough money for paychecks in August and September. After this, without a very significant increase in our support level, everything is up in the air.

It’s difficult to talk about and consider what could very well be the end of our service with Mission Data International. We envisioned our five year commitment to [the ministry] as a springboard into long-term, cross-cultural overseas service. The thought of having to quit, find other work and then come back to missions at a later date does not seem very feasible in our finite, human thinking.

At this point, my goal remains to serve with [the ministry] through the end of the year, if funding allows. We have begun work on a long-term mission website, and without our help it will be very difficult for it to launch in 2007 as planned. Better yet would be for us to be 85% funded by December, giving us at least an opportunity to consider continuing our service with [the ministry] into 2008.

Right now donations meet 60% of our support budget every month.

It is not our practice to ask for financial support in either our newsletters or these prayer notes, but present circumstances make it necessary. If God leads you in His way to give to our service with [the ministry], please do so this month. Our greatest need is for regular donations, be they monthly, quarterly or yearly. A monthly donation of $40 is equal to 1% of our budget.

We really are staring at a cliff. We still have peace about our circumstances. God has been faithful since we began this process almost five years ago. We have never lacked, though we have had to lean on patience from time to time.

A supporter we chatted with on our recent fundraising jaunt exhorted us to stick with it as long as possible. That we will, but truth be told we’re both worn out emotionally, and my wife’s health troubles don’t help our energy level. I was reminded as we traveled of how different the support-based lifestyle is, and how difficult it must be for people who haven’t experience the fundraising process. On the outside it’s easy to believe things are quite similar, especially for those serving in full-time ministry stateside. But behind the scenes the gearing is very different.

We’re now talking seriously about what we might do if, in the next two months or less, we don’t have the support we need. We know the God we serve is big enough for any task. But our minds are beginning to wonder if the door isn’t closing on our full-time service with this ministry. It’s difficult to concentrate on the continuing task of fundraising when thinking about new possibilities, when considering the possibility of needing to sell the house and move.

It’s also difficult to think of quitting the process. As the email cited above states, we have had new support come in. Our support level has always increased. It just hasn’t increased quickly enough. How long does a person persist? What does a slowly closing door look like? We’ve already done the part-time ministry/part-time work thing, and we don’t feel the need to go back to that model. It does not seem sustainable to us, and our missionary salary is barely enough for us to get by on as it is — especially when we’re concertedly spending the money necessary to get my wife healthy again.

Some changes are likely ahead, without a Divine and seemingly miraculous intervention.

Taking stock of our circumstances

Our church asked me to prepare a report of sorts in response to a request I made for additional support. This is a draft of the document (with personal references removed):

Timeline of involvement with ministry

April 2002: Submitted application for employment with ministry.
August 2002: Flew to Arkansas for interview with ministry
September 2002: Accepted as ministry staff.
October 2002: Mailed our first newsletter.
November 2002: Began fundraising with Boot Camp training in Dallas.
May 2003: Moved to Arkansas; I stop working altogether in hopes of hastening the fundraising process. My wife begins working full-time.
November 2004: Began working in the ministryoffice part-time as
support allowed.
November 2006: My student loans paid off. Plans for my wife to quit
working full-time.
February 2007: My wife quits working and I begin full-time in the M-DAT office, using up the reserve fund which had accrued roughly $10,000 over the previous four years of fundraising. This is a temporary fix to our still deficient support level.
April 2007: Sell our car in order to streamline our budget. This eliminates all of our debt with the exception of the mortgage. We’re now driving the late-model Toyota we were given with 225,000 miles on it already.
September 2007: Without a significant amount of new support, the moneys in our reserve fund run out and our salary check will go from roughly $2,200 per month to $1,100 per month. Needless to say, living on $1,100 a month is rough, if it can actually be pulled off.

Minimum support requirement for full-time service with ministry

75% of American missionaries must go out on their own and raise the money required — from friends, family and churches in most cases — in order to begin full-time or part-time missionary work.

The amount of support we are required to raise in order to serve full-time with the ministry was established after discussion and examination of our expenses and the cost of living in Siloam Springs. The number decided upon in 2002 was $4,300 per month. This covered our salary (take-home would be roughly $2,300 if I recall correctly), employer’s side of taxes, insurance, retirement, an administration fee (of approximately 8%) and ministry expenses for things such as fundraising and newsletter postage.

A portion was also set aside for us to make occasional trips to continually develop in our roles with the ministry, such as to a mission retreat or conference. This was later dropped after realizing how difficult getting to full support would be anyway. The minimum support level for us now is $4,075 a month.

The support raising process

Per the timeline above, we officially began fundraising in November 2002. Our first step was a two day training seminar in Dallas. Hours and hours of preparation were required before attending the seminar including the creation of a mailing list, creation of a budget and finishing a workbook. The course was very practical and a good stepping stone for anyone on the verge of the personal support adventure. It did, however, create a bit of false hope in my opinion as the timeline for getting to full support.

We began scheduling appointments immediately after the seminar. In the first 18 months we visited with 125 people, face-to-face, presenting the ministry to them and asking them plainly if they would give towards our service with the ministry. The first 30%in pledges came in with relative ease. After this, however, getting new support became much more difficult. We had exhausted the most reachable portion of our resources. A number of our friends talked of their desire to give, but could not give. Some were still in school, others taking on new expenses with the birth of children.

We knew raising money for a new, internet-based and stateside ministry would be more difficult than “glamorous” overseas work. We knew the post 9/11 economy put certain people in financial situations not conducive to missions giving. But our calling was clear and we continued trying to raise support.

In November 2004 our support level, being about 45%, allowed me to begin working in the office 20 hours a week. At this point we’d spoken to many of the more promising contacts on our mailing list of more than 400 people. I had visited with numerous pastors and attempted to make contact by phone to people far enough away it wasn’t prudent to make a trip to see them.

Throughout 2005 support continued to trickle in, moving us in the right direction albeit at a painfully slow pace. In 2006 we lost a few regular and significant donors, although when all was said and done we still went forward in support. Our intentions of traveling during the year to raise more money were thwarted by Hannah’s stressful job as managing editor at the Herald Leader.

Support in 2007 has again continued to go, ever so slowly, in the right direction. In April we finally made it to 60% of our support pledged.

Personal finances

As stated above, our only debt at this point in time is our mortgage. We cut expenses as much as we felt we could early in 2007, corresponding to our reduced income with Hannah’s leaving the newspaper. This included selling our car to get rid of the payments and lower our insurance costs. We were subsequently given a vehicle in fairly decent running condition. This 1993 Toyota has a little body damage and already boasts of 225,000 miles.

Presently, our savings account contains ~ $3,000 and our checking hovers around $1,000.

Our missional aspirations

The ministry, as a mission mobilizer, views itself as a stepping stone for people planning to go overseas as cross-cultural missionaries. My wife and I took this post with a 3-5 year commitment, expecting in reality to be here at least five years. We have now been a part of the ministry for almost five years, however most of that time has not been in actual service. Most of the time was spent trying to get to a sufficient support level.

We planned on being career missionaries, at some point being overseas long-term. The ministry, as God led, was a very good fit for us at the time. Being stateside allowed Hannah to work, which allowed us to pay off my student loans. This would have been very difficult overseas.

If we don’t see significant new support in the next few months our service with this ministry may be over. While this isn’t for certain, we may be required to move away where I can find a “real job” that suits me.

The thought of quitting the fundraising lifestyle and then trying to come back to it at a later time does not seem realistic to me. I may be thinking in human terms, for nothing is too big a task for God, but I’m not certain we’d be up for the rigorous task of starting from zero twice in our lifetime. The fundraising lifestyle takes an emotional toll on a person that is difficult to describe.

Letting go, letting God

I’ve eluded to this in previous posts already: I’m at a loss as to how to continue raising the rest of our support. We’ve been at it since November 2002 now, although the last couple years I haven’t put much effort into it.

I don’t know if this is because I’m somewhat jaded at the whole process — at the lack of actual giving in comparison to expected or hoped for giving (which raises inevitable questions of faith). I open my address book and just stare at the names, wondering what on Earth I should do next. Maybe it’s because we simply don’t know the right people. Maybe God has some other creative (see previous post) ways for us to subsist in the ministry other than relying solely on personal support.

Regardless, I’ve had an amazing peace about the whole situation. There is certainly a sense of urgency which needs to be conveyed; if we don’t have significant new support (an additional 25%) by the end of the year, we’re going to be in more than a bit of a predicament. Either I’ll have to slide back to part-time at the ministry and find another part-time job, my wife will have to find some regular income to supplement what will be a greatly reduced salary from the ministry, or I’ll be looking for a different line of work.

We remain convinced of our place in this ministry now and for the foreseeable future. So I’m not really thinking about that last option right now.

With this peace, I’ve also been more casual about asking people to support us. This may be a backlash against the very formal fundraising instruction we received — friends recently told me in an interview for Propel that “It seems to us that support raising shouldn’t require you to be people that you’re not” — or it may be related to conversations my wife and I have had about relying more on prayer then strategy (I suppose this is appropriate anyway, although I’m generally a very practical person and — like D.L. Moody in this area — am not the type to spend hours on my knees.).

And, perhaps and hopefully, it’s Spirit-led regardless of the how and why.

Creative missions support

A few snippets from our fundraising experiences relating to creative giving:

* My wife’s father was, when we began fundraising, a car salesman and a pastor. I thought this a very humorous combination, but if you knew the man it made perfect sense. He called us one day, before we’d moved to Arkansas, and said he wanted to buy us a car in order to support us.

That was the same car we felt compelled to sell, as much as we didn’t really want to, as detailed in this post. When he told me this on the phone, which I had answered, I listened and quickly handed the receiver to my wife! I, obviously, have a closer relationship with my father-in-law now (his proposal was less than a year in to our marriage), and would feel more comfortable than I did then discussing such things.

* A lady in our cell group with a hair-cutting salon cut our hair for free, as well as donating a computer to the church and instructing them to give us the value of the machine as a one-time gift (which we never actually got — and even she knew it wasn’t worth all that much — but the point of creativity remains).

* While meeting with a couple to present the ministry and ask for support, they told us how much of an inspiration we were to them at the point in life they found themselves. This was very encouraging to me, and they also support us financially!

* Just after moving to Arkansas, my wife needed some dental work to the tune of $800. We didn’t have $800; in fact, our expenses were more than her job brought in while I raised support full-time. I don’t know how, but we didn’t ever go backwards.

One night after attending a birthday party, friends of ours pulled us aside and asked to pay for the crown. It was a tearjerker, completely unexpected, and for a while I couldn’t remember how they even knew she needed the work. I finally remembered sharing with the men in our cell group my frustration in not being able to provide this for my wife. To God be the glory.

* More recently, my wife and I strove intently to finish paying off my student loans. I knew of at least one other person whose loans were paid by a donor. For more than a year I mulled over the idea of asking our donors and churches to help out in this way before I felt the time was right.

When I finally asked, I asked two churches to pay off the remainder of the school loans. The response from the churches was very slow, it seemed to me anyway. However, a lady on our mailing list, after reading our monthly prayer email noting the situation, took it to mean we were asking her. She sent $1,000 towards the debt.

After some more months had passed, I finally received an answer from the second church. The other church had already said “no,” and by the time the second answered we’d paid a significant amount off ourselves. The same week the second church declined our request, three checks came in from individuals totaling $1,350 — including another $1,000 from the aforementioned donor. This was almost equal to the $1,500 I asked the church for.

In the end, the loans were paid off after four-and-a-half years, on a ten year loan.

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!